Alone
by dcjp
Summary: 16-year-old Lilly Truscott is on her way to visit her father with her best friend, Miley Stewart, when the single-engine plane in which they're flying crashes. Alone in the Canadian wildnerness, what happens? LILEY.
1. Chapter 1

**Rating:** T for now, mainly for the language I added in and some suggestive adult themes. Still deciding if I'll take it to M or let this one stay innocent.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** Have any of you read the book? I did, back in like 4th grade, and it's always stuck with me even though this was…about 15 years ago. I decided to take on a challenge and make this a Liley instead of focusing on my own original story currently in the works. I'm following the book very closely, keeping the majority of the dialogue (which is little, to say the least) and basically rewriting each chapter my own way and adding in the Liley. Occasionally I keep some of the original writing because I can't seem to rewrite it better or in my own way (like the plane details, although my dad does have his pilot's license like I wrote Lilly's in the story and I have flown in the copilots seat in a small plane seating 8 – from Nantucket to Boston, MA – which is really awesome and only encouraged my outlandish idea of getting my pilots license someday), especially the first few chapters. Hope you like it.

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**alone:**_ isolated, seperate, unique._

_**1**_

_Lilly Truscott stared morosely_ out the window of the plane at the endless green northern wilderness below. Her best friend, Miley Stewart, was fast asleep behind her in the small plane, a Cessna 406 – a bush plane – and the engine was so loud, that Lilly was flabbergasted as to how Miley could sleep through it. Not that there was much else to do as the engine was so thundering and consuming that it ruined any chance for conversation.

Not that Lilly had much to say. She was 16 and the only other passenger on the plane besides her best friend was a pilot named Jake or something. He was in his mid-forties and had not said a single word to her or her friend as he worked to prepare the plane for take-off. In fact, since Lilly and Miley had flown into the airport in Seattle, Washington to meet the plane, the pilot had spoken ten words to them.

"Get in the copilots seat. You can take the back," he had grumbled as he pointed first to Lilly and then Miley. They glanced at one another, Miley raising a perfectly shaped brow, silently asking Lilly what had crawled up the pilot's ass. She then grinned, squeezed Lilly's hand that she had been holding, and crawled into the back of the plane as the pilot had instructed.

Lilly sullenly followed her friend, her hand feeling suddenly cold and empty as Miley had barely let go of it since they had started their journey. It had been calming yet energizing at the same time. There was something about Miley Stewart that she couldn't put her finger on, something special, and Lilly was glad to have her along on this trip. They had taken off shortly after, and that was the last of the conversation. Of course, there had been the initial excitement of sitting in the co-pilots seat. Lilly had never flown in a single-engine plane before and to be sitting with all the controls right in front of her was interesting and exciting. She had secretly always wanted to get her pilots license after learning her dad had earned his back in his late teens and early twenties. Back when he was dating her mother. Back when they were happy. She shook her thoughts away, her eyes greedily scanning the instruments as the plane gained altitude, jerking and sliding on the wind currents as the pilot took off. But in five minutes they had leveled off at six thousand feet and headed northwest. The pilot remained stonily silent as he stared out the front of the plane into the vast expanse of nothing as the sea of green trees that lay before the plane's nose stretched out to the horizon as far as Lilly could see. The drone of the engine had been all that was left.

Now Lilly was left alone with only her thoughts as company as she stared out the window, not really seeing anything that passed below her. With the roar of the engine thundering in her ears, her thinking had started. Divorce. Custody battles. Fights and yelling and tears. And smarmy lawyers who sat with their greedy smiles, explaining to her in legal terms how her father was ruining her life. How he was breaking and shattering all of the solid things – her home, her life, her friends, Miley.

Her parents had been divorced since she was 8 and never once had her father expressed an interest in her living with him. It wasn't until he decided to leave California and take a job up north, and suddenly having custody of Lilly meant everything in the world to him.

Lilly felt her eyes beginning to burn with unshed tears and she tried with all her might to keep them in. She had already cried. She wouldn't cry anymore. But her eyes burned and the tears came anyway, the seeping tears that burned as they slid unwelcomed down her cheeks. She quickly wiped them away with a finger and glanced at the pilot out of the corner of her eye to make sure he hadn't noticed them. She was 16; she was too old to cry.

The pilot sat large, his hands lightly on the wheel, feet on the rudder pedals. He seemed more a machine than a man, an extension of the plane. On the dashboard in front of him Lilly saw the dials, switches, meters, knobs, levers, cranks, lights, handles that were wiggling and flickering, all indicating something. The pilot seemed the same way – part of the plane, not human, and nothing that Lilly understood.

When he saw Lilly glance at him, the pilot seemed to open up a bit and he smiled. "Ever fly in the copilot's seat before?" He leaned over and lifted the headset off his right ear and put it on his temple, yelling to overcome the sound of the engine.

Lilly shook her head. She had only been in large jets or in Hannah Montana's private plane. Never had she seen the cockpit of a plane except in films or television. It was loud and confusing. "First time."

"It's not as complicated as it looks. Good plane like this almost flies itself." The pilot shrugged. "Makes my job easy." He took Lilly's left arm. "Here, put your hands on the controls, your feet in the rudder pedals, and I'll show you what I mean."

Lilly shook her head, afraid of having the powerful machine under her control. "I'd better not."

"Sure. Try it…"

Lilly reached out and took the wheel in a grip so tight her knuckles were white. She pushed her feet down on the pedals. The plane slewed suddenly to the right.

"Not so hard. Take her light, take her light."

Lilly eased off, relaxed her grip. The burning in her eyes was forgotten momentarily as the vibration of the plane came through the wheel and the pedals. It seemed almost alive.

"See?" The pilot let go of his wheel, raised his hands in the air and took his feet off the pedals to show Lilly she was actually flying the plane alone. "Simple. Now turn the wheel a little to the right and push on the right rudder pedal a small amount."

Lilly turned the wheel slightly and the plane immediately banked to the right, and when she pressed on the right rudder pedal the nose slid across the horizon to the right. She left off on the pressure and straightened the wheel and the plane righted itself.

"Now you can turn. Bring her back to the left a little."

Lilly turned the wheel left, pushed on the left pedal, and the plane came back around. "It's easy," she smiled. "At least this part."

The pilot nodded. "All of flying is easy. Just takes learning. Like everything else." He took the controls back, then reached up and rubbed his left shoulder. "Aches and pains – must be getting old."

Lilly let go of the controls and moved her feet away from the pedals as the pilot put his hands on the wheel. "Thank you…"

But the pilot had put his headset back on and the gratitude was lost in the engine noise. Lilly turned to look over her shoulder at Miley and found that the girl was awake, most likely jolted out of her slumber by Lilly's poor flying abilities, and was smiling at her. A big, toothy grin that lit up her eyes and made Lilly's heart skip a beat. "Good job!" she mouthed as she held up her thumb, silently congratulating Lilly. Lilly grinned back and mouthed "Thanks," but the drone of the engine prevented any further communication and things went back to Lilly staring out the window at the ocean of trees and lakes. The burning in her eyes did not come back, but memories did. Unwanted memories that she wished didn't exist.

She was brought back to being a little girl, watching as her parents fought and screamed, hearing their words of distrust and hate. The accusations, the lying, the divorce. Lilly hadn't understood at the time and her 8 year-old self could only curl up into the corner of her room and cry as her family was torn apart. She could still feel the fear and powerlessness she had felt back then.

Her mind was brought back to only a few months ago, when she once again felt the helplessness of being a minor stuck between two warring adults. Only this time she knew exactly what was going on, yet the fear was still just as great. The court had left her with her mother except for summers and what the judge called "visitation rights." So formal. Why not just call it her dad ruining her life. Lilly hated judges just as much as she hated lawyers. Judges that leaned over the bench and asked Lilly if she understood where she was to live and why. Judges with the caring look that meant nothing as lawyers said legal phrases that meant nothing.

In the summer Lilly would live with her father. During the school year she would live with her mother. That's what the judge had said after looking at the papers on his desk and listening to the lawyers jabber away.

Suddenly the plane lurched slightly to the right and Lilly looked at the pilot. He was rubbing his shoulder again and there was the sudden smell of body gas in the plane. Lilly turned away to avoid embarrassing the pilot, who was obviously in some discomfort. Must have stomach troubles.

So this summer, this first summer when she was supposed to have "visitation rights" with her father, Lilly was heading north. This was all unfair, and if it weren't for this new custody battle her dad had decided to initiate, she would still be in Malibu, spending her summer surfing and lying on the beach next to Miley. But instead, she was on her way to Alaska. Her dad was some sort of electrical engineer-slash-sales person who was being promoted to branch manager. Apparently he was very personable and who the company trusted most to nurse along and expand their new branch in the outskirts of Fairbanks, Alaska. Lilly had a feeling that he wanted a daughter around to appear more friendly and trustworthy. Lies. But she was still riding up with Miley from a connecting flight in Seattle with some drilling equipment needed in the area – it was lashed down in the rear of the plane next to a fabric bag the pilot had called a survival pack, which had emergency supplies in case they had to make an emergency landing – that had to be specially made in the city, riding in the bush plane with the pilot named James or Jake or something who had turned out to be an all right guy, letting her fly and all.

Except for the smell. Now there was a constant odor, and Lilly took another look at the pilot, found him rubbing the shoulder and down the arm now, the left arm, letting go more gas and wincing. Probably something he ate, Lilly thought.

Her mother had driven both her and Miley to the airport in Los Angeles, where their flight originated from. It had been a long drive in silence. Due to horrendous traffic, it was two hours of sitting in the car, staring out the window. Two hours of silence with only the feel of Miley's hand in hers as she rubbed her thumb across Lilly's knuckles in an attempt to quell her anger and soothe her frustrations. Miley. Lilly wasn't sure what she would do without her best friend, who would visit for a week before leaving her for the rest of the summer. Three long months with no contact with the rest of the world. Just the wilderness and her estranged father who had made no attempt at being a part of Lilly's life for almost ten years now.

Once, after an hour of silence, Lilly's mother turned to them and reached over the seat to bring up a paper sack. "I got something for you, for the trip."

Lilly took the sack and opened the top. Inside there was a hatchet, the kind with a steel handle and a rubber handgrip.

"I know it's not really your thing, Lilly." Her mother spoke now without looking at her. There were some farm trucks on the roads now and she had to weave through them and watch traffic. "The man at the store said you could use it. You know. In the woods with your father. Some bonding time."

Bonding time. Right. Like Lilly could ever bond with the man. As a sixteen year old girl with a hatchet. "Thanks. It's really nice." But the words sounded hollow, even to Lilly.

"Let me see," came Miley's deep soothing voice to her left. Lilly couldn't refuse her, even if she wanted to, and she handed over the hokey gift, feeling only slightly ridiculous. Miley smiled. "You're just like a boy scout," she chuckled. Then, in a whisper into her ear that made Lilly shiver with something foreign she had never felt for her best friend, "My boy scout." Lilly had blushed and turned away to look out the window, forgetting about the hatchet as she focused on the hand her best friend was holding that was suddenly tingling, and so arrived at the airport with a hatchet and strange feelings towards the girl she had called her best friend for the past 5 years.

More smell now. Bad. Lilly turned again to glance at the pilot who had both hands on his stomach and was grimacing in pain, reaching for the left shoulder again as Lilly watched.

"Don't know, kids…" The pilot's words were a hiss, barely audible. "Bad aches here. Bad aches. Thought it was something I ate but…"

He stopped as a fresh spasm of pain hit him, even Lily would see how bad it was – the pain drove the pilot back into the seat, back and down.

"I've never had anything like this…"

The pilot reached for the switch on his mike cord, his hand coming up in a small arc from his stomach, and he flipped the switch and said, "This is flight four six…"

And now a jolt took him like a hammer blow, so forcefully that he seemed to crush back into the seat, and Lilly reached for him, could not understand at first what it was, could not know.

And then she knew.

Lilly knew. The pilot's mouth went rigid; he swore and jerked a short series of slams into the seat, holding his shoulder now. Swore and hissed, "Chest! Oh God, my chest is coming apart!"

Lilly knew now.

The pilot was having a heart attack. Lilly had been in the shopping mall with Miley once when a man in front of them had suffered a heart attack. He had gone down and screamed about his chest. An old man. Much older than the pilot.

Lilly knew. Miley must know as well, as she faintly heard Miley scream her name from behind her.

The pilot was having a heart attack and even as the knowledge came to Lilly she saw the pilot slam into the seat one more time, one more awful time he slammed back into the seat and his right leg jerked, pulling the plane to the side in a sudden twist and his head fell forward and spit came. Spit came from the corners of his mouth and his legs contracted up, up into the seat, and his eyes rolled back in his head until there was only white.

Only white for his eyes and the smell became worse, filled the cockpit, and all of it so fast, so incredibly fast that Lilly's mind could not take it in at first. Could only see it in stages as she was dimly aware of Miley's screams in the background.

The pilot had been talking, just a moment ago complaining of the pain. He had been talking!

Then the jolts had come, and now there was a strange feeling of silence in the thrumming roar of the engine as both Lilly and Miley realized they were alone. Lilly was blank.

She was closed off. Her mind was void. She could not think past what she saw, what she felt. All was vacant. The very core of her, the very center of Lilly Truscott was stopped and stricken with a flash of horror. A terror so intense that her breathing, her thinking, and nearly her heart had stopped.

Stopped.

Seconds passed, seconds that became all of her life, and she began to know, began to understand, what she was seeing. And that was worse, so much worse, that she wanted to make her mind freeze again.

She was sitting in a bush plane with her terrified best friend, roaring six to seven thousand feet above the northern wilderness with a pilot who had suffered a massive heart attack and who was most likely dead or in something close to a coma and completely incapacitated. With no one to fly the plane.

The two of them were alone in the roaring plane. With no pilot, they were alone.

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**Questions, comments, or concerns? **I'd say this chapter was 50/50 me and Gary Paulsen. I tried to rewrite as much as I could, but kept all the dialogue and scenarios intact. So what do you guys think? Is this intriguing enough for your avid reading minds?


	2. Chapter 2

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** yeah. Mostly _not_ mine, this chapter. I tried, and then gave up :) Although, the Miley/Lilly interactions are all mine. And thank you all so much for the reviews. I'm really glad you like the idea, because I'm having fun writing it up!

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_**2**_

_For a time that she could not understand_ Lilly could do nothing. Even after her mind began working and she could see what had happened and could hear Miley screaming for her, she could do nothing. It was as if her hands and arms were lead.

Then she looked for ways for it not to have happened. Be asleep, her mind screamed at the pilot. Just be asleep and your eyes will open now and your hands will take the controls and your feet will move to the pedals – but it did not happen.

The pilot did not move except that his head rolled on a neck impossibly loose as the plane hit a small bit of turbulence.

The plane.

Somehow the plane was still flying. Seconds had passed, nearly a minute, and the plane flew on as if nothing had happened and she had to do something, but did not know what. In the back of her mind, the sounds of Miley sobbing registered in her consciousness.

Help. She had to help.

But she didn't know what to do. She knew C.P.R. but that would not help the pilot or their situation. She stretched one hand toward him and touched his chest. Nothing. No heartbeat, no rise and fall of breathing. The pilot was certainly dead.

"Oh God," Lilly cried, but did not know what or who to ask. "Please…"

The plane lurched again, hit more turbulence, and Lilly felt the nose drop as Miley screamed. It did not dive, but the nose went down slightly and the down-angle increased the speed, and she knew at this angle they would ultimately fly into the trees. She could see them ahead on the horizon where before she could see only sky.

Oh god. She had to help save Miley and herself. It was in her hands. The pilot was gone, and she had to try and fly the plane.

She turned back in the seat, facing the front, and put her hands – trembling – on the control wheel, her feet gently on the rudder pedals. You pulled back on the stick to raise the plane, she knew that from stories her dad used to tell. She gave it a tug and it slid back toward her easily. Too easily. The plane, with the increased speed from the tilt down, swooped eagerly up and drove Lilly's stomach down. She pushed the wheel back in, went too far this time, and the plane's nose went below the horizon and the engine speed increased with the shallow dive.

"Lilly!"

Ok, too much.

She pulled back again, more gently this time, and the nose floated up again, too far but not as violently as before, then down a bit too much, and up again as before, then down a bit too much, and up again, very easily, and the front of the engine cowling settled. When she had it aimed at the horizon and it seemed to be steady, she held the wheel where it was, let out her breath – which she had been holding all this time – and tried to think of what to do next.

It was a clear, blue-sky day with fluffy bits of clouds here and there and she looked out the window for a moment, hoping to see something, a town or village, but there was nothing. Just the green of the trees, endless green, and lakes scattered more and more thickly as the plane flew – where?

She was flying but did not know where, had no idea where they were going. She looked at the dashboard of the plane, studied the dials and hoped to get some help, hoped to find a compass, but it was all so confusing, a jumble of numbers and lights. One lighted display in the top center of the dashboard said the number 342, another next to it said 22. Down beneath that were dials with lines that seemed to indicate what the winds were doing, tipping or moving, and one dial with a needle pointing to the number 70, which she thought might be the altimeter, the device that told her their height above the ground. Or above sea level. Somewhere she had read something about altimeters but she couldn't remember what, or where, or anything about them.

Slightly to the left and below the altimeter she saw a small rectangular panel with a lighted dial and two knobs. Her eyes had passed it over two or three times before she saw what was written in tiny letters on top of the panel. TRANSMITTER 221 was stamped into the metal and it hit her, finally, that this was the radio.

Of course. She had to use the radio. When the pilot had…she couldn't bring herself to say it…he had been trying to use the radio.

Lilly looked at the pilot. The headset was still on his head, turned sideways a bit from his jamming back into the seat, and the microphone switch was clipped into his belt.

She had to get the headset from the pilot or she would not be able to use the radio to call for help. She had to reach over…

Her hands began trembling again. She did not want to touch the pilot, but she had to. She had to get the radio. She lifted her hands from the wheel, just slightly, and held them waiting to see what would happen. The plane flew on normally, smoothly.

"Lilly!" She heard Miley yell her name from behind.

"It's okay! Radio!" She yelled back, trying to overcome the loudness of the engine while keeping her voice from cracking in fear as she pointed at the pilot's headset.

All right, she thought, now to do this thing. She turned and reached for the headset, slid it from the pilot's head, one eye on the plane, waiting for it to dive. The headset came easily, but the microphone switch at the pilot's belt was jammed in and she had to pull it loose.

"Miley! I need your help with the switch on his belt!" She yelled, hoping Miley could hear and was calm enough to understand what was happening. She could hear movement, and suddenly Miley's head appeared to her left between her and the pilot. Her eyes were wild and mascara laden tears streaked her cheeks. "I need you to pull the mike cord free, it's jammed on his belt!"

Miley nodded her head in understanding then glanced at the pilot, clearly nervous about touching him. She carefully leaned over his body as much as she could from her position and began yanking on the cord, her elbow accidentally bumping the wheel and pushing it in, sending the plane into a shallow dive. She shrieked as her body flew forward in the weightlessness, and Lilly quickly grabbed the wheel and pulled it back, too hard again, and the plane went through another series of stomach-wrenching swoops up and down before she could get it under control.

"Lilly, I can't!" Miley cried, her face pale with a greenish pallor. "I'm gonna be -"

"No," Lilly commanded. "You can't be sick now."

Amazingly, Miley and her body obeyed and she leaned forward once more and jerked the cord free.

"Good. Now get back in your seat belt!" Lilly yelled as she fumbled with placing the headset on her own head. She saw Miley staring at her from the corner of her eye and she glanced over. Fear mixed with something else shone in Miley's eyes.

"Lilly, I -" The tremor in her voice scared Lilly nearly as badly as their situation. Suddenly the plane disappeared and all she could see was Miley and her trembling chin as tears threatened to spill over. Lilly wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around the girl and disappear in her embrace, revel in the comfort only Miley's arms could provide. But the humming of the engine reminded her of their imminent disaster and she broke her gaze from Miley's troubled cobalt eyes.

"I know, Miles. I…I'm going to try, ok? Now I need you to get back in your seat and strap yourself in tight! Whatever happens, it's going to be rough!"

Lilly swallowed thickly as she watched Miley disappear into the back of the plane again, and she positioned the small microphone tube in front of her mouth. She took a few deep breaths to still her pounding heart.

She had seen the pilot use the radio, had seen him depress the switch at his belt, so Lilly pushed the switch in and blew into the mike.

She heard the sound of her breath in the headset. "Hello? Is there anybody there? Hello…."

She repeated it two or three times and then waited but heard nothing but her own breathing.

Panic crept in. She had been afraid, had been immobilized with the terror of what was happening, but now panic came and she began to scream into the microphone, over and over.

"Help! Somebody help us! I'm in this plane, and don't know…I don't…I don't know…"

And she started crying with the screams, crying and slamming her hands against the wheel of the plane, causing it to jerk down, then back up. But again, she heard nothing but the sound of her own sobs in the microphone, her own screams mocking her, coming back into her ears.

The microphone. Awareness cut into her. She had used a CB radio in Robbie Ray's pickup once, back in Tennessee on a visit with Miley. You had to turn the mike switch off to hear anybody else. She reached to her belt and released the switch.

For a second all she heard was the _whoosh_ of the empty air waves. Then, through the noise and static she heard a voice.

"Whoever is calling on this radio net, I repeat, release your mike switch – you are covering me. You are covering me. Over."

It stopped and Lilly hit her mike switch. "I hear you! I hear you. This is me…!" She released the switch.

"Roger. I have you now." The voice was very faint and breaking up. "Please state your difficulty and location. Over."

Please state my difficulty, Lilly thought. God. My difficulty. "I am in a plane with a pilot who is – he can't fly. And I don't know how to fly. Help me. Help…" She turned her mike off without ending the transmission properly.

There was a moment's hesitation before the answer. "Your signal is breaking up and I lost most of it. Understand…pilot…you can't fly. Correct? Over."

Lilly could barely hear him now, heard mostly noise and static. "That's right. I can't fly. The plane is flying now but I don't know how much longer. Over."

"….lost signal. Your location please. Flight number…location….ver."

"I don't know my flight number or location. I don't know anything, I told you that, over."

She waited now, waited but there was nothing. Once, for a second, she thought she heard a break in the noise, some part of a word, but it could have been static. Two, three minutes, ten minutes, the plane roared and Lilly listened but heard no one. The she hit the switch again.

"I do not know the flight number. My name is Lilly Truscott and I'm with Miley Stewart. We left Seattle, Washington headed for somewhere near Fairbanks, Alaska to visit my father and I do not know how to fly an airplane and the pilot…"

She let go of the mike. Her voice was starting to rattle and she felt as if she might start screaming at any second. She took a deep breath. "If there is anybody listening who can help me fly a plane, please answer."

Again she released the mike but heard nothing but the hissing of noise in the headset. After an hour of listening and repeating the cry for help she tore the headset off in frustration and threw it to the floor. It all seemed so hopeless. Even if she did get somebody, what could anybody do? Tell her to be careful? Don't crash?

It was all so hopeless.

She tried to figure out the dials again. She thought she might know which was speed – it was a lighted number that read 160 – but she didn't know if that was actual miles an hour, or kilometers, or if it just meant how fast the plane was moving through the air and not over the ground. She knew airspeed was different from groundspeed but not by how much. She really should start paying more attention in physics.

Parts of books she'd read about flying – gifts from her father, ironically – came to her. How wings worked, how the propeller pulled the plane through the sky. But they were all simple things that wouldn't help her now.

Nothing could help her now. Not even Miley and her eerie silence since Lilly's outburst on the radio.

An hour passed. She picked up the headset and tried again – it was, she knew, in the end all she had – but there was no answer. She felt like a prisoner, kept in a small cell that was hurtling through the sky at what she thought to be 160 miles an hour, headed – she didn't know where – just headed somewhere until…

That was it. Until they ran out of fuel. When the plane ran out of fuel it would go down.

Or she could pull the throttle out and make it go down now. She had seen the pilot push the throttle in to increase speed. If she pulled the throttle back out, the engine would slow down and the plane would go down.

Those were her choices. She could wait for the plane to run out of gas and fall or she could push the throttle in and make it happen sooner. If she waited for the plane to run out of fuel they would go farther – but she did not know which way they were moving. When the pilot had jerked he had moved the plane, but Lilly could not remember how much or if it had come back to its original course. Since she did not know the original course anyway and could only guess at which display might be the compass – the one reading 342 – she did not know where they had been or where they were going, so it didn't make much difference if they went down now or waited.

Everything in her rebelled against stopping the engine and falling now. She had a vague feeling that she was wrong to keep heading as the plane was heading, a feeling that she might be going off in the wrong direction, off into the vast Canadian wilderness, but she could not bring herself to stop the engine and fall. Now they were safe, or safer than if they went down – the plane was flying, Miley and her were both still breathing. When the engine stopped, they would go down.

So she left the plane running, holding altitude, and kept trying the radio. She worked out a system. Every ten minutes by the small clock built into the dashboard she tried to radio with a simple message: "I need help. Is there anybody listening to me?"

In the times between transmissions she tried to prepare herself for what she knew was coming. When she ran out of fuel the plane would start down. She guessed that without the propeller pulling she would have to push the nose down to keep the plane flying – she thought she may have read or seen that somewhere or it just came to her. Either way it made sense. She would have to push the nose down to keep flying speed and then, just before they hit, she would have to pull the nose back up to slow the plane as much as possible.

It all made sense. Glide down, then slow the plane and hit.

Hit.

She would have to find a clearing as she went down. The problem with that was that she hadn't seen one clearing since they'd started flying over the forest. Some swamps, but they had trees scattered through them. No roads, no trails, no clearings.

Just the lakes, and it came to her that she would have to use a lake for landing. If they went down in the trees they were certain to die. The trees would tear the plane to pieces as it went into them.

She would have to come down near the edge of a lake and try to slow the plane as much as possible just before they hit the water.

Easy to say, she thought, hard to do.

Impossible to do.

The thought of Miley's life in her hands, on top of her own brought a cold chill to her body.

Miley can't die. I can't kill Miley. Oh, God. Miley.

Why was she in charge, having to make all these decisions and steer this large piece of metal and machinery without knowledge and training? The gravity of Lilly's power over both their lives hit her full force and her body trembled as her mind flew over all possible worst scenarios. It was suddenly difficult to swallow and breathe.

She repeated the radio call seventeen times at ten minute intervals, each time more desperate than the last. Once more she reached over to the pilot and touched him on the face but the skin was cold, death cold, and Lilly turned back to the dashboard. She did what she could, tightened her seatbelt, positioned herself, rehearsed mentally again and again what the procedure should be.

When the plane ran out of gas she should hold the nose down and head for the nearest lake and try to fly the plane onto the water. And just before it hit she should pull back on the wheel and slow the plane to reduce the impact.

Over and over her mind ran the picture of how it would go. The plane running out of gas, flying the plane onto the water, the crash – from pictures she'd seen on television. That guy landed a jet on the Hudson River; surely she could land a small plane on a large lake, right? She tried to visualize it. She tried to be ready.

But between the seventeenth and eighteenth radio transmissions, without a warning, the engine coughed, roared violently for a second, and died. There was a sudden silence, cut only by the sound of the wind past the cockpit and Miley's quiet sobs that were all of a sudden audible.

"Oh God, Miles. Hold on!!!"

Lilly pushed the nose of the plane down and threw up.

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**Questions, comments, or concerns? **If you haven't noticed, it's taking me longer to update this than my last story. Mainly because I'm changing the story, as well as trying to make it more original and not copy the author entirely. So don't expect more than 1-2 updates a week, if you're lucky. Grad school is becoming a full-time job, as it probably should be. Add to that cooking my own meals, cleaning my own apartment, and spending time with my cat that acts neglected when I spend too much time in front of the computer during the rare times that I'm actually home...


	3. Chapter 3

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** Hello friends :) So I don't know what's up with FF lately as I haven't gotten a single email about reviews (although I do see on the site that people are posting them), and apparently some of you did review for the last chapter but they disappeared. Must be some kind of strange FF temporal paradox that results in several reviews and emails never happening. Hopefully everything is fixed and you guys all get this chapter when I post it!

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_**3**_

_I'm going to die_, Lilly thought, her brain screaming it in the sudden silence. Her mind was blank except for this horrid thought, and a sickly chill crept over her body. Oh God, I'm going to die. And then a flash of her best friend, smiling at her as they sat at Rico's and listened to Oliver tell another lame joke flew across her mind.

Miley. She must do this to save Miley.

Lilly wiped her mouth with the back of her arm and shook away her thoughts of death. She reached trembling hands that felt oddly detached from her body and grabbed the wheel, holding the nose of the plane down. The plane went into a fast glide, quickly losing altitude, and Lilly was dimly aware of the yelp that came from the back of the plane. Miley is alive, and she's going to stay that way.

A silent alarm went off in Lilly's head as she suddenly noticed that she couldn't see any lakes. Ever since they had started flying over the forest, all she had seen were lakes dotting the green carpet of trees below. Where were the damn lakes! Far out on the horizon she could see lots of them, glittering blue in the late afternoon sun. But that didn't help her. She desperately needed a lake right in front of the plane _NOW_, yet all she saw through the wide windshield of this damn plane were green fucking trees, trees that would be the death of her. Of _them_.

Lilly's mind raced. She could attempt to turn the plane around. Surely they had flown over a lake closer than those she saw on the distant horizon. But she was fairly certain that if she turned the plane she couldn't keep it flying. They would drop faster towards the thick canopy of evergreen, and faster towards imminent death. The cold panic started creeping in again, her stomach tightening into knots and her breath began coming in short bursts as all feeling began to flow out of her body.

A faint glitter out of her right eye managed to catch her attention and she turned her head, feeling as though she were moving in slow motion. There, out of the right windshield was a lake! It was shaped like an L, almost as if it were calling her name. Adrenaline surged through her body as she became aware of what she now must do. The plane was almost aiming at the long part of the L, she just needed to turn a little to the right. She swallowed and held her breath as she gently pushed the right rudder pedal, and the nose moved over.

However, the maneuver had meant a sacrifice in speed, and the lake was now above the nose. They were headed for the trees once more. Lilly slightly pulled back on the wheel, bringing the nose back up, and once again dramatically decreasing the planes speed. Fuck. The plane almost seemed to stop and stagger in the air. Please don't drop out of the sky, Lilly prayed, closing her eyes and sending a silent plea to whomever, if anyone, was listening.

The controls of the plane became very loose in her hands due to the lack of speed. Panicked, Lilly pushed the wheel back in. Their speed once again increased, but once again the windshield was filled with nothing more but trees. The lake was once again above the nose and far out of reach.

Time seemed to stop, suspending everything in animation. For three or four seconds, the world hung around Lilly and the plane. It was still flying, but slowly. Too slow. They would never reach the lake. Damn it! They had been so close! Tears stung Lilly's eyes as she looked out the side windshield and saw a small pond. A large animal, what looked to be a moose, stood out in the water. It all looked so still, the pond and the moose and the trees, as the plane slowly coasted only a few hundred feet off the ground. It looked like a picture.

Then everything happened at once. Trees took on detail and no longer looked like a carpet of green. Lilly's entire field of vision was filled with green, and she knew they were going to hit. They were going to hit they trees, and they were to die. She reached her hand awkwardly behind the seat, blindly searching for Miley and felt her cold shaking fingers grasp onto Lilly's. So this was it.

But their luck held and just as they were about to hit the tree canopy, it dropped away into an open channel of fallen trees, leading like a runway into the lake.

The plane was now committed to crashing and it fell into the wide open space like a stone. Like dead weight. Lilly used her free hand to ease back on the wheel, trying to slow their speed but the nose of the plane came up to far and she found herself staring at a wall of trees instead of glistening blue water.

Before her next breath, before she even had time to process anything, the plane hit the trees. Lilly's heart leapt into her throat at the same second her stomach hurtled through the floor. People always say that accidents happen so fast and you never know what hit you. In Lilly's limited experience, that was bullshit. One, she knew exactly what hit her. And two, every terrible sound, every sickening smell, every glimpse of horror and beyond was paraded before her in a morbid show all done in slow motion.

First, she was aware of a horrendous wrenching as the wings caught the trees at the side of the clearing and ripped back, breaking just outside the main braces. Dust and dirt blew off the floor into her face so hard she thought there must have been some kind of explosion. She was momentarily blinded and slammed forward in the seat, so violently that she thought she would tear in two. Her head flew forwards, smashing against the wheel and the taste of warm blood filled her mouth, making her choke.

Then there was a wild crashing sound, the ripping of metal, and the plane careened sideways to the right, heading for more trees and not the lake. Shit, this was not supposed to happen! They needed the 'softness' of the water to cushion their crash down to earth. Instead, the scent of copper, gasoline, and fresh pine trees filled her nose.

Like Dorothy on her trip to Oz, she watched in confused fascination and barely contained horror as objects around her took flight and the ground and trees came rushing at them too quickly. The headset flew and slammed against the dash, and Lilly was having a hard time telling up from down as the plane spun into the trees. Somebody was screaming, screams of fear and pain and she did not know if it was her or Miley. Or was it in her head? Then the pilot's large flight log exploded against the side of her face and neck, making everything go fuzzy and millions of stars danced across her vision. It was still daytime outside, wasn't it?

Her seatbelt cut into her, stealing her breath. "Miley!" she screamed, but the sound was lost in the chaos of crunching metal and shattering glass. Tree branches lashed against the plane, snapping off and punching through the windows like lances in search of a victim.

Oh, God, she was going to die and she wasn't nearly ready. She couldn't come to terms with it, even though the past few hours should have prepared her for this. But she wasn't ready for the end. She didn't want to die. She didn't want Miley to die.

Then everything came to an abrupt halt, her brain close to short-circuiting as it attempted to register the fact that they weren't spinning anymore…and that she was hanging upside down by her seatbelt. Like a rag doll, her arms dangled loosely over her head. Lilly's eyes fluttered open slowly and she was hazily aware of a hot liquid running down her face and through her hair, dripping onto the ceiling of the plane.

The plane creaked loudly one last time and then there was no sound except Lilly's own ragged breathing. She held her breath, willed her body to stop quaking, afraid that the slightest sound or movement from her would send them on another trip down through the trees. Then she began to choke on her own blood. She coughed a few times, trying to spit and rid her mouth of the acrid taste.

It was hard to breathe and she couldn't tell if it was because of the seatbelt digging into her waist or if she'd done something horrible to her lungs. Then she realized how quiet it was. Oh God, what if she's dead? "M-M-Miley," she screeched, her voice panicky and high. "Miley!"

A warm hand suddenly cupped her cheek and Lilly jumped, the plane moaning again, the sound of metal scraping against metal sharp in her ears. "Shh…It's all right. I'm here," came Miley's accent-laden voice.

Lilly had never been so glad to hear her best friends voice and she nearly cried.

She reached out a shaky hand, her eyes meeting Miley's. The girl looked like she'd been run through a garbage disposal. Her clothes were torn and soaked with blood in places, and her beautiful face had a dozen small cuts that were all sluggishly bleeding, some with bits of pine needles sticking in them.

Miley leaned toward her and the plane suddenly tilted to one side. She fell sideways and Lilly screamed out in pure terror.

"It's okay. It's okay," Miley murmured after they stopped moving, her eyes wide with fright. "We need to do this carefully." She glanced around, inching her way closer on her knees.

Lilly's stomach twisted and she spat out more blood. She took a few deep breaths to still her pounding heart. "How bad are you hurt, Miles?" She asked shakily.

"I'm…" There was a pregnant pause. "I'm alive."

Lilly let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding and tried to ignore the throbbing in her head. "That good, huh?"

Again, there was no quick answer, but Lilly could feel a hand on her seatbelt, struggling to release it.

Lilly blinked away some tears mixed with blood and glanced toward the front of the plane. The windshield was smashed in with branches, and so many other crisscrossed tree limbs and mangled metal obscured her vision that she couldn't tell where they were or where the lake was. She felt the tears coming full force now, and a sob escaped the back of her throat.

Tender fingers wiped the moisture from her eyes. "Shh…we need to get you out of here before we crash to the ground, and I need you to help me." She wrapped her hand around the buckle of her seatbelt and jiggled it a few times, but nothing happened.

"I think you're going to have to cut me out," Lilly groaned. "It's stuck."

"Crap. Okay. We need a knife or somethin'. Shit, you're not supposed to have knives on planes, are you?"

Lilly was taken aback by the swearing that left Miley's mouth. It sounded foreign and unnatural coming from her lips. She could count on one hand how many times she'd heard Miley swear, in fact, on one finger. She was too pure, or too perfect, for anything foul to touch her. "Hatchet," Lilly rasped as she began feeling more dizzy from her upside-down suspension in the plane. Her head was pounding now.

"Right. I'll be right back."

It took what seemed like forever, but she finally returned with the hatchet. She pinned Lilly with a serious look tinged with sympathy. This was not only going to be scary as hell, it was going to hurt. "I'm going to start attempting to cut you out, but I'm not sure how well this is going to work. You ready?"

Already dizzy and disoriented, Lilly tried to brace her hands against the ceiling. "I don't want to hit you when I fall."

"Hey." Lilly glanced up into Miley's eyes that were staring into hers with sizzling intensity. "I'm not givin' up on you if you don't give up on me. All right?"

They stared at each other for what felt like a thousand years, but couldn't have been more than a few seconds. "All r-right." God, why was she still spinning? "But -"

"You won't fall on me, Lil. Just promise."

Lilly girded herself for the pain that was sure to follow. "Please don't let me kill us," she mumbled. "Okay. I promise."

She was aware of the sawing and jerking, the sound of the strap tearing, and a few short strokes later Miley cut through the seatbelt. Lilly did her best to cushion her fall but ended up landing right on her head anyway. Her entire body exploded in abject misery.

The plane rocked back and forth, creaking like an old boxcar moving down the track, and she held onto Miley for dear life. When it finally stopped, she was acutely aware of her shoulder screaming in pain, and there was a good chance she'd wet her pants from relief.

Miley blinked a few times, looking around them as though she was surprised they were both still alive. "We're almost out of here."

"Almost," Lilly whispered, even more surprised than Miley. She flitted her gaze around and was shocked by the utter devastation. She couldn't even tell this was a plane anymore. She desperately wanted to roll her aching shoulders but was afraid of the extra movement. Just don't think about it. "Now what?"

Lilly didn't know how far up in the trees they were, and her mind was suddenly very tired. She couldn't make any more decisions. Her brain was a cloud as she stared at Miley, hoping for guidance.

"We miraculously get outta the plane." Miley gave a bleak, but determined smile. She motioned towards the door that had been wrenched free during the crash. "Let's go."

Lilly slowly made her way on hands and knees, making sure not to jar the plane in any sudden movements and send them plummeting to their death. It was a torturously slow affair but she finally found herself grasping onto pine branches for dear life as she watched Miley climb safely out of the plane. Lilly guessed this is where being a tomboy and growing up climbing trees came in handy as she gradually began climbing down the tree, limb by limb. She was too terrified to glance below her to see how far they had to go and she was also worried about Miley's clumsiness when it came to any sort of physical activity. Like climbing trees…not that they'd done any such thing since they were 12 years old. And now would not be the time to fall to her death, not after they'd somehow survived the crash and made it this far. So she continued her snail's pace down the tree, always keeping one eye on her friend and one eye looking out for the next branch below.

After what seemed like forever, Lilly's feet slammed into solid ground at the base of the tree and she stumbled from underneath it and away from the plane, wobbling along the shore of the lake. Her legs soon buckled beneath her and she felt her face hit the ground, the coarse blades of grass prickling her smooth delicate skin. A loud groaning filled her ears and she warily glanced up. Miley sat, wide-eyed and stared as the plane tilted in the trees, snapping branches as it moved. Lilly watched in slow motion as the plane they had just managed to escape from fell through the trees, out onto the lake. She felt droplets of water land on her, heard the loud splash and a strange gurgling noise. And then everything came to a stop. She didn't see anything, she didn't hear anything, as a color came across her vision that she had never seen before. It exploded in her mind with the pain and she was gone from it all, spiraling out into nothing.

Her last thought, as the nothingness consumed her, was thank God Miley was alive.

She wasn't alone.

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**Questions, comments, or concerns? **I decided not to have them crash in the water, like the original. I'd thought about Miley being unconscious and Lilly having to drag her out of the plane and water, but instead took some inspiration from another favorite story, which I also stole some dialogue from :) (_Stranded_, by Blayne Cooper. Read it. You'll fall in love with Nora like I did). This was a hard chapter for me, as it was the first one to break away from the original story a bit, but I like my decision. I hope you do too.


	4. Chapter 4

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** More material/dialogue was borrowed from _Stranded_ for this chapter as well. I'm not feeling very original. Any of you watch American Idol this week with Miley? I've never watched a single episode of the show until this season, but because I'm a fan of Ellen's I've been watching this season from the beginning and I was happy to see Miley both nights this week. I thought she was great.

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_**4**_

_Memories flashed before her_, all centered around one theme, one person.

Miley Stewart.

She had been sitting at Rico's with Oliver. They had been arguing over who got to eat the last of the nachos they were sharing as they both didn't have enough allowance left to buy their own. Lilly remembered everything in incredible detail. It had been late afternoon, about 4:30, and the temperature on the late summer day - the day before their first day of middle school - was in the low 80's. Every bit of that afternoon was ingrained in her, all of her life since then was part of that memory.

Oliver had just turned to smile and attempt flirting with a passing, unsuspecting victim, and Lilly looked over his head and saw her. Miley. Of course, at the time she had no idea who the girl was or her name.

She was walking toward her, glancing about nervously as she made her way to Rico's. Apparently she knew the new employee because they began talking as she sat in the stool at the counter. Lilly had wanted to approach her, smile at her and ask her name. She felt a strange desperate need to know this girl. But something stopped her. The short blonde guy behind the counter made a face at the girl and she stormed off angrily, leaving her unfinished smoothie behind.

Lilly saw this and more, but the memories were coming back in pieces, in small scenes. Miley.

***

Lilly opened her eyes and blinked.

For seconds she did not know where she was. She heard birds singing. Why were birds singing? Then she heard faint sobs. Someone was crying?

Her body felt like it had been run over by a truck. She tried to move, but pain hammered into her and made her breath shorten into gasps so she stopped.

Pain. The crash.

She turned again and sun came across the water, cutting into her eyes and making her turn away. It was low over the lake, it must be late afternoon. She closed her eyes and lowered her head back to the ground, for what she thought were minutes. But when she opened her eyes again, it was late evening. Some of the sharp pains had abated and she found she could move again without total agony.

She was alive. Miley was alive.

Miley.

She raised herself into a sitting position and glanced around, looking for her best friend. When she didn't see her at first, panic swept through her body as worst case scenarios began playing in her mind. Had it been a dream? Did Miley share the same fate as the pilot? Did she drown? Did a bear eat her?

A flash of pink caught Lilly's eye and she looked back, training her eyes to the trees behind her. There. Miley was curled up at the base of a pine tree, asleep. Relief flooded through her body.

Lilly tried getting to her feet then, intent on getting to Miley. Her body had other plans though and she fell back to the ground immediately. Her legs were on fire and felt like Jell-O while her forehead felt as if somebody had been pounding on it with a hammer. But she could move, and she began crawling on her hands and knees until she was at Miley's side. Then she went down, this time to rest and save something of herself. She lay on her side facing Miley, her body as close as she could get to the other girl, and put her head on her arm and closed her eyes because that was all she could do now, all she could think of doing. She closed her eyes and slept.

***

There was almost no light when she opened her eyes again. The darkness of night was thick and for a moment she began to panic. She couldn't see anything. But she turned her head without moving her body and saw that across the lake the sky was a light gray and the sun was starting to come up. The thickness of sleep left her, and she remembered it had been evening when she went to sleep. She was still in pain, her legs were cramped and drawn up, tight and aching, and her back and shoulders hurt when she tried to move. The worst was a keening throb in her head that pulsed with every beat of her heart and Lilly remembered falling on it as Miley freed her from the seatbelt.

"Must be mornin' now," mumbled Miley's voice in a hoarse whisper.

Lilly turned her head back and her eyes met blue-grey ones. Her breath caught in her throat at the intensity of Miley's gaze. She couldn't tear her eyes away. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just dizzy."

Lilly nodded and rolled onto her back, feeling her sides and her legs, moving things slowly. She rubbed her arms and nothing seemed shattered or sprained. Just battered around a bit. The soreness was a painful reminder that she was alive. It could have been different, much different. Lilly shuddered at the thought and tried to sit up, managing to come to a sitting position on her second attempt.

She looked back over, and Miley didn't resist when Lilly smoothed the unruly hairs from her face and her fingers danced across the many cuts scarring her beautiful features. "No, you aren't okay." She broke the gaze, looking her over in the dim light and groaned when she found that the lower half of one leg and the corresponding shoe was stained solid crimson. Fear made her heart clench.

Shit. Lilly berated herself for not taking care of Miley the second they got out of the plane. But between her body's exhausted state and the fact that the world had felt like it was spinning upside down, she hadn't noticed anything besides the solid ground just before she'd passed out.

"Miles, I think you've lost too much blood. No wonder you're dizzy," she said as she looked back into stormy, pain-ridden eyes.

Miley didn't argue. With clumsy fingers, Lilly rolled Miley's pant leg up, inspecting the cut. It was about 3 inches long and gruesomely deep and Lilly knew it needed stitches, something she definitely couldn't provide. She untied the bandanna around her wrist and gently touched Miley's leg. "We need to stop the bleeding," she said as she cinched the cloth around the gash in her leg, wincing as she heard Miley hiss in pain. "Is this okay?"

"Yeah," she grated, her jaw clamped shut so tight Lilly was surprised any sound emerged at all.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Miley only shook her head as she battled to keep fresh tears from falling.

Lilly crawled up next to Miley and leaned against the same tree. There was a faint chill and she wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders to share what body heat they had, despite her own shoulder screaming in protest. "It'll be okay," she said, more to herself than to Miley. Then she pressed her lips to the top of Miley's head. Despite everything, her hair still smelled clean, like soap and vanilla, and was baby soft. Lilly brazenly allowed her lips to linger.

Miley wrapped her arms around Lilly's waist and hugged her close. It hurt like hell, but Lilly wouldn't have traded it for anything. Both of them were alive, and that's all that mattered. They sat facing the lake, watching the sky get lighter with the coming dawn as the sun came over the end of the lake. This was really happening.

It took an hour or two for the sun to get halfway up. Lilly was unsure of the time, she couldn't measure its passing and she didn't really care. With the gentle rays came warmth, small bits at first as it filtered through the trees, trying to defeat the harshness of the northern air. But with the sun came insects – thick, swarming clouds of mosquitoes and black flies that flocked to their bodies, clogging their nostrils when they inhaled and poured into their mouthes when they opened them to take a breath. Was this some kind of sick joke?

This was unbelievable. Yes, they had survived a plane crash, but the insects were impossible. Lilly coughed them up, spat them out, sneezed them out, closed her eyes and kept brushing her face, slapping and crushing them by the hundreds. But as soon as she cleared a space, more came, thick, whining, buzzing masses of them, all biting, chewing, and taking from her.

She heard Miley cry out in frustration, and in moments her eyes were swollen shut and her face was puffy and round. She tried covering her face by pulling up her t-shirt, but that exposed the skin of her lower back and the mosquitoes and flies attacked the new soft flesh so viciously that she quickly pulled the shirt back down.

In the end she sat with her face in her arms and took it, almost crying in frustration and agony. There was nothing left to do. But when the sun was fully up and heating her directly, bathing her in warmth, the bugs disappeared. That swiftly. One minute they were being eaten alive; the next minute, the suckers were gone and the sun was on them.

"Isn't this where you'd normally say sweet niblets?"

"Can't. Swallowed a bug," Miley coughed. "Dang vampires."

"Nobody ever mentions bugs, only the beautiful scenery and animals frolicking in the water. I don't think I like Alaska, or Canada, or wherever the hell we are." As soon as the words left her mouth, Lilly's stomach dropped and she truly grasped their situation. They had been off course. For several hours they had been flying in a direction that wasn't the original flight plan. And they had crashed down somewhere in a vast uninhabited wilderness…

Miley sighed. "We're screwed, aren't we?"

If Lilly could have found her voice, she would have agreed. Instead, she pulled herself up to stand against the tree and stretched, bringing new aches and pains. Her back, neck, and shoulders felt as though the bones were rubbing together wrong and were painfully stiff. The backs of her hands were puffy and her eyes were almost swollen shut from the mosquitoes, and she saw everything through a narrow squint.

Not that there was much to see. The lake stretched out before her, blue and deep. They were at the base of the L, looking up its length with the short arm to their right. The water was perfectly still in the morning calm. She could see reflections of trees at the other end of the lake, almost like a mirror. And as she looked out, a large bird – she thought it looked like an eagle – flew from the top of the trees, out over the water.

It was Miley who broke the silence first. "We need to make a plan. We can't just sit here doin' nothin' and wait to die."

Lilly was like a deer in the headlights. Her heart hammered. "I don't know what to do."

"Dang flabbit, Lilly! Me neither! But we need to start thinkin' of somethin'."

"I-I-I..."

Concern etched across Miley's face. "What's wrong?"

A sudden urge to cry overwhelmed Lilly and she bit her lip to keep the tears back. "I just can't! I can't make any more decisions! I don't know what the right answer is! I don't want this to be in my hands anymore!" The tears she had tried to hold back were now streaming down her face.

Miley sat in shocked silence, deciding how to reply. Elbow on the knee of her good leg, she braced her chin with her hand. "I'm sorry for fussin' at you Lil, but I don't know what the right answer is either." She looked at her with what looked like compassion and gratitude. "You did good Lilly. If I'd have been in your place in that cockpit, I wouldn't have been able to land us safely. Well, you know what I mean." Her smile was small and a tad shy. "You were amazin', and I've got my life to thank you for."

Lilly looked into her tempestuous blue eyes and saw the strength and determination she knew she needed to find within herself again. She also saw something else, something she had never seen before. Someone _needed_ her.

Miley might be strong and independent and fully capable, but she needed Lilly. They wouldn't survive this alone. The odds were fully stacked against them.

She turned back to the lake, taking a few steps toward the shore. Everything was so green here. The forest appeared to be made up of pine and spruce, with stands of some low brush speckled in every now and then and thick grass all over. The country around the lake was somewhat hilly – small rolling knolls – and there were very few rocks except to their left where a sheer ridge stuck out overlooking the lake, about twenty feet high.

Thank God the plane didn't come down to the left. They would have been truly smashed. Destroyed.

Luck, Lilly thought. She had good luck here. But she knew that was wrong. If she had good luck, the man she called her father wouldn't have fought for her custody and she wouldn't have been flying out here with Miley and a pilot who had a heart attack. She wouldn't be here at all if she had luck.

If it weren't for bad luck, she thought, I wouldn't have any luck at all.

She shook her head again – wincing. Another thing not to think about.

Miley limped behind her and nearly rested her chin on Lilly's shoulder. Her sigh sent warm air dancing over Lilly's skin. "Are you okay?" she whispered, her lips close to Lilly's ear.

Lilly nodded and forced a tight smile.

"How's your headache?"

Lilly slightly turned her head to the side, her eyes searching for Miley's. "How do you know I have a headache?" She asked. "I haven't said anything."

"Your lips get thinner and you squint more…although that could be from the swellin'. So?" she prodded. "Your head?"

Lilly sighed, turning back to the lake. "It hurts."

She felt Miley nod her head against her shoulder, then nuzzle her face in Lilly's neck. When she spoke again, her lips moved against Lilly's skin, causing goosebumps to appear on her arms and a delicious sensation run through her body. "I wish I could make it go away."

"I wish you weren't hurt. I wish we weren't here at all. I wish…I wish a lot of things," her voice faded away as she thought of home and her mother, and Oliver.

Miley was quiet for a few minutes as they both stared out at the lake and pondered their circumstance. "So what's next?"

"Next you need to take a nap."

Miley drew in a breath to protest, but Lilly wasn't in the mood. "Stop being a pain in the ass and lie down." She gentled her voice, but only because when Miley was this close her knees wanted to melt. "You've lost a lot of blood, and later or tomorrow or sometime soon we need to figure out what to do, as you said. I need your help, Miles. And that means you can't pass out on me. Please."

Lilly felt Miley's lips against her cheek in something that might have been a kiss before she withdrew. "You win," she murmured. Her voice was filled with pain and Lilly's stomach clenched nervously. She hoped Miley wasn't injured too badly. She knew she needed a doctor.

The skin Miley had touched tingled, and Lilly had to force herself not to lift her hand in wonder and feel the spot. She turned back to her inspection of the lake as Miley limped back to the shade of the trees.

The rocky ridge to the left was rounded and seemed to be of some kind of sandstone with bits of darker stone layered into it. Directly across the lake from it, at the inside corner of the L, was a mound of sticks and mud rising up out of the water a good eight or ten feet. A small brown head, what must be a beaver building a dam in the mass of tree limbs, popped to the surface of the water near the mound and began swimming off down the short leg of the lake leaving a V of ripples behind.

A fish jumped, splashing near the beaver, and as if by a signal there were suddenly little splashes all over the shore of the lake as fish began jumping. Hundreds of them, jumping and slapping the water. Lilly watched them for a time, in a daze. The scenery was very pretty, there were new things to look at, and its vividness was almost too much. This was nothing like the grayness of the city. Cars honking, people shouting profanities, the din of electrical activity – the hustle and bustle of the city.

Here, it was silent. Although when she really listened, she could hear thousands of things. Hisses, birds singing, insects humming, splashes from the fish jumping…

She stood in silence for nearly an hour, the warm sun bringing heat back to her body and color to her cheeks. She didn't know what Miley was doing, if she had decided to sleep or not, but Lilly spent her time stewing, hurting, and worrying. They had to make a choice, a plan, figure out a way to survive until they were rescued. _If_ they were rescued. Overwhelmed, she let her face fall into her hands. She couldn't even get the clock on her stereo to stop blinking twelve, how was she supposed to keep from dying out here? She didn't know what the right answer to anything was and she was afraid of making all the wrong ones.

Lilly was tired. So awfully tired, and she supposed she was still in some kind of shock from the crash.

She turned and made her way back to Miley and the tree, a tall pine with no branches until the top, and sat down next to her looking out at the lake with the sun warming her to the core. Within a few moments, she was asleep again.

* * *

**Questions, comments, or concerns? **I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's harder than I thought, adding in another person to the story. I type it up, rewriting the scenes and chopping out things (especially Gary Paulsen's love of extreme repetition), adding in bits of Miley as I go. Then I read through the chapter and find more places I could add her in. Then read through it again and find that it doesn't flow anymore…aaaggghhh!!! What do you guys think? I think I'm missing the essence that is Miley Stewart.


	5. Chapter 5

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** Sitting here eating home-made hummus with some chopped veggies, listening to the birds chirp as I sip on my sun tea. I love spring weather. Miley and Lilly would be jealous ;) Thanks to Gerri Hill for some inspiration, and thanks to all of you for all your wonderful reviews and praises, I appreciate the comments and support! And don't worry, I'm not giving up. I'm currently working on typing up chapter 13 (out of approximately 20). Of course, chapters 6-12 are still under construction as every time I read through them I find something to add and errors to fix.

* * *

_**5**_

"_Come on, Miles. You can make it."_

"I don't know, Lilly. It's pretty high."

"I promise, I won't let you fall." Lilly reached down and offered her hand to Miley. Miley didn't hesitate. She let Lilly pull her up the tree to the first limb, sitting across it like a horse, just as Lilly was. "See? Piece of cake." Lilly pointed. "If we can just get up there, it'll be enough room for both of us to sit. And we'll be high enough so Oliver can't get up here to bother us. The doughnut doesn't like climbing trees."

"Lilly, I can't go that high. Daddy will have my butt if he finds out."

Lilly laughed. "He'll only have your butt if you fall!"

Lilly used Miley's shoulder to balance herself, shoving her dirty sneakers between branches and the trunk of the old oak, climbing ever higher. She looked down at Miley who was watching her in awe. "Well, come on. Follow me up."

Their eyes met, blue on blue, and Miley's face set with determination as she followed Lilly up the tree. Lilly found the bend she was looking for, and it was plenty wide enough for the two of them to sit. She knelt in the crevice of the tree, again offering her hand to Miley.

They leaned back, both breathing hard after their excursion. Then Miley started laughing.

"What?"

"I wouldn't do this for anybody else," she said.

"Do what?"

"Climb up this high, or climb up a tree at all. You know I'm scared up high. Remember when I told you about fallin' off the barn roof at my mamaw's in Tennessee?"

"Yeah. But you made it. See? Here we are, at the top of the world," Lilly said, waving her arms to the treetops.

More flashes of Miley were coming back to her, memories in bits and pieces like this – Miley smiling, Lilly looking out at the treetops as she held her hand, the warm breeze on her face, her worn out sneakers that she'd thrown a fit over when her mother had insisted she get a new pair. The slices of the memories were exact.

Miley.

***

Lilly's eyes snapped open. She was suddenly aware of how unbelievably thirsty she was. Her mouth was parched and sticky with the foul aftertaste of dried blood and her throat was screaming out in desperation. Her lips were dry and cracked and she felt as if she would wither up and die if she didn't drink some water soon. Lots and lots of water.

She felt burning on her face and a weight against her chest. It was mid-afternoon and the sun had come over them and cooked her while she slept with Miley curled up against her chest, warming her body even more. Her face was on fire and she knew that it would blister and peel. It was just one thing after another out here, wasn't it? As if the plane crash and their injuries and the bugs weren't enough. Now she was exposed to the elements and burning up, with a vicious thirst that overtook her brain.

She gently rolled Miley off of her, brushing the back of her fingers against the girl's cheek as she slept, relishing the feel of Miley's skin against her own. She needed her rest, needed to replace all the blood she had lost and gain back her strength.

Lilly stood, using the tree to pull herself up as her body was still stiff with pain. She looked down at the lake. It was water, but she didn't know if she could drink it. She knew untreated water in the mountains was bad – something about bacteria or parasites, Giardia. Nobody had ever said anything about lakes though and so she wasn't sure if it was safe to drink. There was also the thought of the pilot and the plane. Down in the deep blue with the plane, still strapped in, was the pilot's body…

She closed her eyes at the thought, stomach twisting. But the lake was deep and so crystal blue and wet-looking. Her mouth was almost watering at the thought, and probably would be if the sun hadn't beaten the moisture out of her body and she hadn't cried it all out through her copious amount of tears in the past 24 hours. Her throat was burning with thirst and she knew there wasn't any other water to drink.

Lilly took small steps down toward the bank of the lake. Along the edge were straggly grasses and murky water with small bugs swimming about. But there was a log extending about twenty feet out into the water of the lake, most likely a beaver drop from some time before. Lilly stepped onto the log, testing it's sturdiness as she grabbed on to some old limbs sticking up. It seemed stable so she began teetering out past the weeds and murky water.

When she was out where the water was clear, she kneeled on the log to drink. Just a few sips, she thought. She didn't want to make herself sick by drinking too much contaminated water. But when she brought a cupped hand to her mouth and felt the cold lake water trickle past her cracked lips and over her tongue, she couldn't stop. She had never been this thirsty, not even after crashing on her surfboard in the Pacific Ocean and inhaling huge amounts of salt water. She stooped over and put her mouth to the lake and drank, swallowing enormous gulps of the water until her stomach was swollen. She sat back on her haunches to rest for a few minutes.

Then a bout of queasiness struck her. Her stomach was rolling and a thought occured to her. Maybe drinking until she couldn't hold another drop wasn't such a good idea. She rolled to her knees and promptly threw up most of the water. But her thirst was gone, and the water seemed to reduce the pain in her head as well, although her sunburn was still cooking her face.

"So here we are," she mumbled as she looked out over the lake from her spot on the log. For the first time since the crash her mind started to work clearly and logically, without the stress and emotions. There were things to sort out, and as Miley said, they couldn't just sit there waiting to die.

Lilly slowly rose from her squat on the log and staggered along back to the shore. Unexpectedly there was a sharp stinging sensation on her ankle and she let out a loud yelp. When she looked down at her foot, she saw that a bee was the culprit, its body still wiggling as the stinger was stuck in her skin.

"Damn it!" She yelled, waking Miley up as she continued to scream profanities and flick the bee off her foot.

"Lilly? What's wrong?"

"A fucking bee just stung me, that's what's wrong!" She limped off the log onto the shore, landing on the ground as Miley leant down by her side.

"Lemme see it." Miley remained calm, soothing Lilly with her voice as she grabbed her ankle.

"_Now_ my luck changes? God, what else can go wrong?" She spat sarcastically.

"Shh…Don't tempt fate. Now be still, the stinger is still in your foot."

Lilly felt the all too familiar welling of tears and she bit her tongue to distract herself and keep them from spilling down her cheeks. Instead she focused her mind on Miley and her soft hands that were comforting and healing as they removed the stinger and inspected her ankle.

She found herself studying the other girl's profile, intrigued by her long, tapered fingers and graceful neck. Her ears were perfectly shaped and her jaw line held just the right amount of strength. God she was beautiful. She had deep expressive blue eyes lined with dark curly lashes, a husky voice laced with a southern accent, long beautiful hair that smelled so delicious it made Lilly's mouth water. She was smart and kind, and as untouchable as the stars.

Then Lilly shifted and saw Miley studying her carefully and was suddenly worried she could read the thoughts running through her mind. She found Lilly's eyes, holding them captive, and Lilly felt her heart begin to race, warmth flooding her body as she felt a surge of attraction. It took all she had to tear her eyes away from Miley's, glancing down at her swollen and painful ankle as heat spread across her face. Heat that had nothing to do with her sunburn.

Where did that come from?

"Is it hurtin'?" Miley's voice was low, deeper than usual, and it sent a shiver through Lilly's body.

"Just a little. I'll be all right."

"Sorry, darlin'. I wish I could fix you up better. You better not be allergic to bees."

"No. Thanks Miles."

"Anytime, anything." Miley smiled softly, gently rubbing her hand across Lilly's ankle.

Lilly was hot now, the sun high and beating down on her, and Miley was stirring something within her that made her a little nervous. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to get in the shade and away from Miley's burning touch. Clearing her throat awkwardly, she stood up without a word and limped her way to the shelter of the trees, all the while cursing herself for what she was feeling and how she was acting.

She reached 'their' tree and slumped down to the ground, her back against the rough bark. Miley was hesitantly following her, and soon they sat side by side against the tree. Here we are, and that is nowhere. Lilly's mind began rushing and she couldn't take it, so she fought it down and tried to take one thing at a time.

"So we were flying north to visit my dad, the pilot had a heart attack and died, and the plane crashed down somewhere in the Canadian wilderness but we don't know where or how far off course we were." There, she said it. Out loud. It was out there in the open and real.

"Sounds 'bout right. We're two 16 year old girls stranded alone in the north woods of Canada." Miley's voice sounded robotic, emotionless.

"Okay. So we don't know where we are. So that means they don't know where we are. They being anyone who might be looking for us."

"You're good at this."

Lilly ignored Miley's remark. "They'll be looking for us, for the plane. I mean, the flight plan was filed. They know the general area we're in. It shouldn't take more than a few days for them to scan the area, right?" She was hopeful. They might even come today. This was the second day after the crash after all. No, she frowned. Was it the first day or second day? It was the first whole day they were out here. "They would have started the search immediately when our plane didn't arrive."

"Maybe they'll come today. Maybe we'll be home by dinner. But Lilly, we need to think about what happens if they don't."

Dinner. There came Lilly's hunger and she couldn't think about the second half of Miley's sentence. She rubbed her stomach. The hunger had been there, but the fear and pain of the situation had held it down. Now as Miley mentioned food, the emptiness of her stomach roared and demanded substance.

And there was nothing to eat. Nothing.

In the movies or on TV, they usually found some kind of plant or fruit – bananas and mangoes because they were lucky enough to be stranded on a tropical beach. Either that or they used some kind of cute contraption to catch a wild animal and roast it over a roaring fire as they ate a full eight-course meal. Right. Lilly now knew that reality was far from the Hollywood version of being stranded by a plane crash. Her situation more closely resembled the movie _Alive_, although she hoped they would never resort to cannibalism. In fact, she knew if she were in that situation she could never bring herself to – no, she couldn't even think it. No matter how desperate, she would not follow that path. Those guys on _The Essex_ were haunted for the rest of their lives, and not by the thought of a giant sperm whale, but by what they had to do to survive.

The trouble here, Lilly thought glumly as she looked at their surroundings, was that all she could see was brush and grass. There was nothing obvious to eat aside from the birds, and the beaver. And even if there was an animal they could trap and cook, they didn't have matches to start a fire. They had nothing.

It kept coming back to that. They had nothing.

Lilly had once had an English teacher, a guy named Corelli. Well, he had also been their drama teacher and history teacher, and Miley had been in most of those classes with her. But Mr. Corelli was always talking about being positive, staying on top of things. That was his way of telling them to get motivated.

Lilly glanced at Miley who was scowling at the lake. "Maybe we should take inventory of everything we have." At Miley's raised eyebrow, Lilly clarified, "It will at least give us something to do and let us know exactly where we stand."

"Ok." Miley dug in her pockets. "A quarter…three dimes…a nickel…two pennies…a twenty…and fingernail clippers. Oh, I almost forgot!" She scrambled up and attempted to run over to a nearby tree, as much as she could with her injured leg. She picked up something at its base and came back with the hatchet in her hand.

"We still have this?" Lilly had forgotten about the tool, and reached out to take it from Miley's outstretched hand. There was a touch of rust already forming on the cutting edge of the blade and she rubbed if off with her thumb.

"Yeah, I tucked it in my jeans when we came down the tree. Somehow I had the right mind to realize it might come in handy."

Lilly looked at Miley and smiled, silently thanking her. "Ok. So we also have the clothes on our back, shoes, socks, my belt, your jacket, some money, fingernail clippers, the hatchet, and a watch," Lilly said as she took off her watch and added it to the small pile of items between the two of them. "It's broken though, must have happened in the crash."

There. That was it. Well, besides themselves, their most valuable asset as Mr. Corelli would say. Lilly looked around. "I'm hungry."

Miley chuckled. "I was wonderin' when you were gonna say that. You're stomach's larger than Uncle Earl's after he's eaten the entire Thanksgivin' day table."

"Whatever," Lilly grumbled. "I'm still hungry."

Of course, she thought, if they come tonight or even tomorrow the hunger isn't a big deal. People have gone for days without food as long as they've got water. Even if they didn't come until late tomorrow they'd be all right. Maybe they'd lose a little weight, but the first few hamburgers and milk shakes Lilly planned on consuming would bring it right back.

A mental picture of a hamburger thundered into her thoughts. Bright colors of ketchup and melted cheese, hot juicy meat…Lilly shook the picture away. Don't think about it.

Miley seemed to understand Lilly's thoughts. "Well, at least we got plenty of water to hold us over."

Lilly leaned back against the tree in defeat, her mind still half on the hamburger, the other half wandering and thinking. "Miles?"

"Yeah?"

"What if they don't come, as you said? The pilot pushed the rudder pedal and rammed the wheel when -" Lilly paused. Just say it. "Well, when he had the heart attack he pushed us into a different direction. Even if it wasn't by much, we were flying away from the original flight plan at maybe 160 miles an hour or more for several hours…."

Miley was silent, absorbing what Lilly said, before she replied in a small voice. "So we're probably off course by more than a few hundred miles, at least."

Neither girl said anything for several long minutes. Lilly was back to battling tears that were warring to spill down her cheeks. What was it about this place that turned her into a little girl who cried every chance she got?

"Well…" Miley cleared her throat; her voice was wavering, giving away her emotion. "They'll search along the path that we should've taken, maybe lookin' a little to the sides. But if we're three to four hundred miles to the side, and they don't know where or when we crashed…" She paused then hoarsely whispered, "They might not find us for several days Lil, maybe even a week or two or…"

Lilly felt her heartbeat increase as the fear started. They might not find them for a long time. They might never find them. Lilly pushed the thought down. She needed to stay positive. They searched hard when a plane went down, especially if it was unknowingly transporting a world famous pop star. Plus, she had talked to the man on the radio, so they would know…

It would be all right. They would soon find them. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Soon.

Gradually the panic faded away. Say they didn't come for three or four days. They could live with that. They would have to live with that, and she didn't want to think about them taking longer to find them. But four days was livable. They still had to do something though. They couldn't just sit at the base of their tree and stare at the lake for the next four days.

And nights. They were deep in the woods and didn't have matches to start a fire. There were large animals in the woods – like wolves, and bears, and other things. Things that ate meat, and humans were meat. In the dark they would be sitting in the open here, an easy target for any predator.

Lilly looked around suddenly, felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up and she instinctively leaned closer to Miley. Things might be looking at them right now, waiting for dark to come…

Miley must have noticed the change in Lilly's demeanor. "What?"

"We need some kind of shelter…And something to eat," she replied as she pulled herself to her feet.

They had to do something to help themselves, starting now.

* * *

**Questions, comments, or concerns?** That bee sting happened to me once. I was kayaking/camping up along the sunshine coast in British Columbia with my best friend, I think we were 18 at the time, and we had just set up camp on a little island before heading inland towards a fresh water lake. I hate swimming, I have an unexplained and unnatural fear of large bodies of water and my own body being in it (I still like kayaking and canoeing though, as I'm not actually in the water myself), but I followed my friend out on a log into the water anyway so that we could jump in, when a bee stung my foot. That thing hurt so bad, and with no way to get the poison out or ease the pain, I just had to suffer through it. We filled a small bag with water and used it as an 'ice'-pack, with my foot sticking outside the tent all night so we wouldn't get our sleeping bags wet. But during the middle of the night we woke up to a mouse running through our tent, so I had to bring my foot back inside and suffer in silence. Good times. ANYWAY… It's not AS hard adding Miley in as I originally thought because I can just use Brian's thoughts as a base for dialogue between them, but I feel like that makes them lack character. I tried, maybe overly so with Miley, but I don't know how it went. You guys be the judge of that. But I'm going to keep this in Lilly's POV. By the way, if you didn't know, the Essex was the whaling ship that sunk because of the giant sperm whale that rammed the boat. The book _Moby Dick_ was based off the original story, and if you guys are interested, the book _In the Heart of the Sea_ by Nathaniel Philbrick does an awesome job of telling the original story.


	6. Chapter 6

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** I had fun with this :) The song is "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream (Part 2)" by My Morning Jacket.

* * *

_**6**_

_Back when Lilly was seven or eight_ she and Oliver, her best friend since kindergarten, had been fooling around down by a secluded part of the beach, where the vegetation was thicker and a small stream came from the rocks along the hillside and ran down into the ocean. It was quiet there and seemed kind of wild, and they had been pretending that they were stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean and had talked about what they were going to do. Of course, they figured they'd have all sorts of things, like a knife, fishing gear, and matches to start a fire.

On the beach that day they had decided the best shelter was a lean-to and Lilly decided that's what they'd do now. Maybe cover it with grass or leaves or sticks, she thought. She started to head down to the lake.

"Where ya goin'?"

"Down to the lake. I saw some willows there that we could use for braces for a lean-to."

"I'm comin' with."

"No." Lilly's voice was stern. "You need to rest and gain back your strength."

"Lilly -"

"I said no," Lilly snapped. "Miley, you lost a lot of blood and your leg is still bleeding a bit. You should stay off of it as much as you can. At least for the next few days until it heals some."

"Fine," she replied, sighing loudly and glaring at Lilly.

"Good. I'll be back soon."

"Maybe we should find a good place for a lean-to first, Lilly, before you start cuttin' down things and haulin' 'em back up here." Miley yelled out at Lilly's retreating form as she started her descent toward the lake.

Lilly stopped. She was right. "Okay…but we should probably stay near the lake. If they can somehow see the plane under the water, we don't want to be far away. Plus, we need water." Her eyes fell upon the rocky ridge to their left and she thought they should build their shelter against the stone. However, Miley had other plans.

"Let's check out the far side of the ridge first."

Lilly started to shake her head. "N -"

"Sweet filthy flippin' niblets, Lilly, don't you dare tell me no another time!" Miley was furious and Lilly took a step back. She had never seen her this angry before.

"Then don't _make_ me say it," she replied just as fervently. "I don't think it's such a good idea for you to go traipsing about on a leg that's seriously injured and still oozing blood, Miles!"

"Well _I_ don't think it's a good idea for you to be wanderin' about on your own. And I'm not an invalid! My mother's dead, Lilly, and I _don't_ need another one."

Her words stung. It was like getting punched in the face, and Lilly finally froze. She didn't know if she should apologize or snap back. She settled for relenting to Miley's wishes, and they slowly made their way to the far side of the ridge, both of them limping along in silence.

And that was where they got lucky. Using the direction of the passing sun, Lilly figured that the far side was the northern side of the ridge. At one time in the far past it had been carved out by a glacier, and this had left behind a sideways bowl back in under a ledge. It wasn't deep like a cave, but it was smooth and made a perfect roof that they could almost stand in under the ledge, only slightly tipping their heads forward at the front to keep from hitting the top. The crumbling sandstone made a small sand beach that went down to the edge of the water in front and to the right of the overhang.

"I'll take it!" Miley beamed, a large toothy grin plastered on her face. It was their first good luck.

No, Lilly thought. They had good luck in actually surviving the crash. But this was good luck as well, and they needed it.

All they had to do now was wall off part of the bowl and leave an opening as a doorway and they would have the perfect shelter. It would be much stronger than a lean-to and drier too, as the overhang made a watertight roof.

Lilly crawled back in under the ledge after making her assessments and sat next to Miley in the sand. It was cool here in the shade, and it felt wonderful on her sun burnt face which was beginning to feel pretty painful.

"The sand reminds me of home," came Miley's hushed voice, laced with tears. Lilly hadn't noticed she was crying and the quiet admission caused her heart to constrict. Miley looked like a sad and scared little girl trapped awkwardly in a beaten and dispirited teenager's body.

"I promise you, we're going to make it out of here." And at that moment, Lilly knew she would promise anything to change the look on Miley's face.

Her lower lip trembled and her gravelly voice was as wispy as Lilly had ever heard it. "Promise?"

"Promise," she uttered solemnly, reaching over to grab Miley's hand. When their fingers brushed Lilly felt a sudden and unexpected rush of relief down to the bottom of her soul. Thank God the crash didn't kill her, was all that ran through her mind.

Miley sniffled. "I'm sorry for yellin' at you earlier. I just -"

"Shh…don't even think about it Miles. I was being a jerk. I'm not your mother or your keeper and I should have let it go. You know what's best for you."

Miley turned her head to look at her then, the color of her eyes almost matching the blue of the lake in front of them. They were tired and so soulful, and for just a second, she took Lilly's breath away. Beautiful.

Lilly leaned over and pressed her forehead to Miley's. "We'll be fine, okay? We'll be fine." She wasn't sure who she was trying to convince more, herself or the crying girl next to her.

Relief flooded Miley's face. "Thank you," she said softly and tiredly.

They were _both_ still tired and weak. The walk around the back of the ridge and the slight climb over the top had left Lilly's legs rubbery and she couldn't imagine how Miley's felt. It felt good to sit in the cool sand and rest for a bit in the shade, holding her hand.

And now, she thought, if they just had something to eat. Anything.

When they had rested for a bit she pulled Miley to her feet and brought them down to the lake to drink a few swallows of water. She wasn't thirsty but the water might help take the edge off her hunger, and Miley needed lots of fluids to replace her lost blood volume. But the water didn't curb her hunger. Instead, it somehow made it worse, sharpened it.

She thought of dragging in wood to make a wall on part of the overhang, but when she leaned down to pick up one piece her arms were so weak the piece immediately fell back down to the ground. She knew she wasn't weak from the crash and the injuries to her back and head; it was mostly weakness from hunger.

She would have to find something for them to eat, before they did anything else. But what?

Lilly leaned back against the rock and stared out at the lake. She was so used to having food always being there. When she was hungry she went to the freezer, or Rico's, or the Stewart's house where Robbie Ray was always cooking up a meal.

Oh, Lilly thought, remembering her last meal there. It was the night before last, the night before they had flown out here. Lilly's mom had been working late, again, and she found herself at the Stewart's house as she had countless times before.

The meal had been thick juicy steaks and they cooked them out on the back deck overlooking the Pacific. Robbie Ray had put hickory chips on the charcoal and the smell of grilled meat and hickory smoke had filled the backyard. They had all sat out on the deck, joking around with Jackson as Robbie Ray grilled the meat and Lilly had never felt more part of a family than she did then, laughing at Robbie Ray's lame jokes and Jackson's antics and Miley's deep throaty laugh. And then Robbie Ray had opened the lid of the barbecue, and the smell was unbelievable as were the steaks. They had been juicy and rich, with the taste of smoke…

She had to stop this. Her mouth was full of saliva and her stomach was twisting and growling.

What was there to eat?

She remembered watching a show on TV on the local news about some boy scouts that were taking a wilderness survival course. They had to live in the woods for a week, finding food and water and making shelter.

For water they had used a sheet of plastic to catch dew and rain, and for food they ate wild strawberries and plants and one of them had even managed to catch a squirrel.

Well, they had plenty of water, so that was nothing to worry about. There were probably squirrels out here, but Lilly didn't see how she could ever catch one. One of the boy scouts had told about using a magnifying glass to focus the light of the sun and start a fire to cook the squirrel, but they had nothing of the sort. The show really wasn't helping her at all.

There was one thing, though. One of the older boys had found some kind of bean on a bush and they had used them to make a stew with the squirrel meat in some tin cans they had found. Bean squirrel stew. Lilly shivered. She didn't think there would be beans here, but maybe berries. There had to be wild berry bushes around, wasn't that what deer and bears and whatnot survived on?

She pushed off of the rock she was leaning against and walked out into the sand, looking up at the sun. It was still high, maybe one or two in the afternoon if she had to guess. At home she would probably be heading over to Miley's house right about now. During the summer she always slept in until about 8 or 9 when she would meet Oliver at the beach for some waves. Then she'd head home for a quick shower and make her way over to the Stewart's around lunchtime, Robbie Ray sure to be fixing up something good.

Lilly shook her head. The sun was still high and that meant that they had some time before darkness to find some berries. She didn't think it would be a good idea to be away from the shelter – Lilly almost thought of it as home – when it came to be dark.

She didn't want to be anywhere in the woods when it got dark. And she didn't want to get lost – which was a real problem. All she knew in this world was the lake in front of them and the hill at their back and the ridge. If she lost sight of them, there was a really good chance that she could get turned around and not find her way back. To Miley. So she had to look for berry bushes, but keep the lake or ridge in sight at all times.

She looked up to the north along the shore of the lake. For a couple hundred yards it was fairly clear with not too much low brush – only tall pines that didn't have any limbs until close to the top. After that, a belt of thick lower brush started, maybe about ten feet high that looked like it went around the lake. It was thick and lushly green, and she could not see through it.

If there were going to be any berries around here, they would probably be in that brush, and as long as she stayed close to the lake, she wouldn't get lost. When she was done with her search, or when she found berries, she could just turn around and follow the lake shore back to Miley and their shelter.

Lilly glanced back at Miley who was lying on her back in the unfinished shelter; her hands idly playing with the sand at her sides as she quietly hummed a tune Lilly couldn't make out.

"Hey Miles. I'm going to go try to find some berries."

"Okay, you want me to come with?" she timidly asked, most likely trying to avoid another confrontation.

"No, I've got it. I won't go far, just up the lake shore a bit. But can I borrow your jacket to use as a sort of bucket?"

"Of course, Lil." She tossed the garment up into her hands. "You don't have to ask. What's mine is yours, especially out here."

Lilly smiled at the warm grin on Miley's face. "Thanks. I'll be close by, in sight of the lake at all times."

"Oh, I'm not worried," she murmured, running a hand through her hair as she lay back down. "I'm not thinkin' 'bout all the bad things that could happen to you at all…"

"Maybe it's all just a bad dream, right?" Lilly said softly, her eyes glancing over Miley's body as she relaxed back into the soft sand.

Miley softly smiled as her eyes fluttered shut. "It's not _all_ bad."

Lilly's heart thumped hard against her chest. It's all right to have a teensy bit of flirting between friends…right? She heard Miley's throaty chuckle as she turned to the lake, walking slowly along the shore. She was still in a little pain and she was getting weaker with hunger.

She heard birds singing in the trees above her, and she tried to pick out any that she knew. She thought she saw a robin and some sparrows, and then there was a small flock of reddish orange birds with thick beaks. Twenty or thirty of them were sitting in one of the pines and they made a bunch of noise and flew off as Lilly walked under the tree. She watched them fly, their color a bright contrast to the solid green around her, and then they landed in some taller undergrowth. They started jumping around and making noise in the large leaves, and as Lilly got closer she saw what they were doing. They were eating berries!

She couldn't believe it was that easy. It was as if the birds had taken her right to food. The slender branches went up about twenty feet and were heavy, drooping with clusters of bright red berries. They were half as big as grapes and hung in bunches and when Lilly saw them, glistening red in the sunlight, she almost yelled.

Her pace quickened and she was in them in moments, scattering the birds as she grabbed branches and stripped them to fill her mouth with berries.

She almost spat them out. They weren't necessarily bitter, they just lacked sweetness and had a tart flavor that left her mouth feeling dry. The berries were like cherries in that they had large pits, making them hard to chew. But there was such a hunger in Lilly, her stomach screaming in emptiness, that she could not stop eating and kept stripping the branches and eating by the handful, jamming them into her mouth and swallowing them pits and all.

She could not stop, even when her stomach was full she still felt hungry. Two days without food had most likely shrunken her stomach but her drive of hunger was still as large as it had always been. Her mind jumped to Miley and she picked up the jacket she had dropped in her race for food. She made a pouch of the material as best she could and kept picking the berries until she had close to four pounds. Then she turned to make her way back to their camp by the ridge.

Now they had food and could do something about fixing the place up. She glanced up at the sun. There was still plenty of time before it was dark.

If only they had matches, she thought, as she stared remorsefully out at the lake and small beach. There was driftwood everywhere, as well as dead and dry wood all over the hill. All firewood, but no matches. How did the cavemen do it? Rub sticks together?

She found Miley at the lake shore in front of their shelter. She turned her head, cupped hands almost to her lips, as she heard Lilly's approach. Their eyes met and Lilly stopped, caught off guard at the intimacy she glimpsed there, the crystal blue of Miley's eyes holding her and once again Lilly realized she had stopped breathing. The forest receded and Lilly was aware of her heartbeat as it drummed in her ears as she watched Miley bring her hands to her lips, stopping just before taking a sip of the water, eyebrows raised in a silent question.

Damn, Lilly thought, as she watched the smile that had been inching across Miley's face grow wide. A light breeze blew by, caressing every inch of warm, exposed skin on Lilly's body as she stood mesmerized at the sight before her. Inanely, all she could think was, _wow_, as she watched Miley take a deep drink, her eyes holding Lilly's the entire time. Lilly heard herself swallow at the same instant Miley did.

"Hey, find anything good?" she softly asked.

When Lilly didn't answer, Miley slowly stood, all the while looking her square in the eyes. Her smile somehow got bigger, stretching her cheeks and giving a glimpse of dimples that Lilly had never seen before.

Suddenly she realized what she was doing and Lilly let out a strained laugh, her face once again heating. God, how embarrassing. She'd just been watching her best friend drink water, and had been mesmerized by it. She shook her head and took another look at Miley.

She'd been a busy girl; her face was wiped clean although the tiny cuts were still there and looked red and painful. Her hair had also been fashioned into a single braid that hung to the middle of her back. She was so pretty. Lilly had a nearly overwhelming desire to close the distance between them. An ache, a need, that was so profound it was physically painful.

"Y-Yeah." Lilly cleared her throat, trying to steady her voice. "I got some berries. I don't know what they are, and they don't taste good, but…"

"Thanks Lils, you're amazing," Miley huskily praised as she stepped toward Lilly, taking the proffered jacket/bucket and glancing down at it. "Mind if I eat a few?"

Lilly shook her head, unable to form any words. What is going on? Lyrics from a familiar song began to fill her head…

_If you touch me, well I just think I'll scream_

'_cause it's been so long since someone challenged me._

_Made me think about the way things are,_

_made me think about the way they could be…._

Lilly forced the words out of her head and instead of mulling over her strange developing feelings for her best friend, she grabbed a few sticks by their campsite and decided to try to start a fire. But after ten minutes of rubbing she felt the sticks and they were almost cool to the touch. She threw them down. They wouldn't make fire that way. But she could still fix the shelter and make it more livable.

She stole a glance at Miley, who was down at the shore humming a song as she washed the berries and sorted through the ripe and unripe fruit. Never before had the thought come across her mind, but she silently began wondering how such a smart and beautiful girl had ever decided to become friends with such an impulsive and plain tomboy like herself. Miley was too good for her.

Lilly started dragging sticks up from the lake and pulling long dead branches down from the hill. With these she interlaced and wove a wall across the opening of the front of the rock. It took over two hours, and she had to stop several times because her neck and shoulders were screaming out in pain and once because she felt a strange new twinge in her stomach – a tightening, rolling, and she vaguely wondered if she'd eaten too many berries.

But the pain was gone soon and she kept working until the entire front of the overhang was covered save for a small opening at the right end, nearest the lake. The doorway was about three feet, and when she went in she found herself in a room almost fifteen feet long and eight to ten feet deep, with the rock wall sloping down at the rear.

"Good," she mumbled to herself. "Plenty of room for two people and more…"

Outside the sun was going down and the mosquitoes were crowding in again. They were thick, but not as terrible as before. She followed Miley and crawled back in under the rock and huddled close to her. She was deeply tired and aching from her previous injuries as well as the work she had done that day. But instead of falling asleep immediately, she lay staring at the rock wall and Miley's hunched form in front of her. The girl was creating strange feelings within her, and Lilly wasn't sure of what to think of them. It was chilly and as the evening cool turned to night cool and the mosquitoes slowed, Lilly found herself scooting up against her best friend's body, gently spooning her, the warmth of her body satisfying Lilly in more than one way.

Then, at last, with her stomach turning on the berries, Lilly went to sleep.

* * *

**Questions, comments, or concerns?** Between the ages of 14-18 I was in a co-ed venture crew. We spent weekends rock climbing, mountaineering, kayaking, camping, etc., while learning survival skills like how to survive in the wilderness, how to swim to shore in a frigid rushing river, how to stop yourself if you're sliding down a glacier...It was awesome. But during our wilderness survival outing, all I remember is freezing my ass off curled up under a tarp at night, and spending all day trying to catch a squirrel while others gathered berries and edible plants. I still have the two stones I used to catch squirrels, because someone apparently told me that hitting two rocks together mimics some kind of squirrel noise and attracts them. Three of us were on the squirrel hunt that weekend, and we got close, but unfortunately (or fortunately) we never managed to catch one…


	7. Chapter 7

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** This one felt choppy to me. It was still fun to write though, especially as Lilly slowly works things out. The lyrics at the end are from the same song as mentioned last chapter.

* * *

_**7**_

"_Miley!"_

She screamed it and she couldn't be sure if the scream or the pain in her stomach had awakened her. Her whole abdomen was torn with great rolling jolts of pain that doubled her over in the darkness of the shelter. She could only moan.

Never had she felt anything like this. It was as if the berries, pits and all, had exploded and ripped at her insides. She slowly crawled out the doorway, careful of Miley, and was sick in the sand to the left of their shelter. She crawled further, away from the shelter and their campsite, and was sick again, vomiting until she thought she'd cough her stomach up. And then diarrhea. For over an hour, until she was drained of all strength, her body rid itself of everything.

Then she crawled back into the shelter and fell to the sand, immediately falling asleep.

***

Rico's, every detail burned into her, the girl. She was storming off angrily and Lilly followed her with her eyes until she slumped to the sand several hundred meters away. It was as if she was being pulled toward her, her desire to speak to the girl and know her over ruling everything else, and as if in a daze, she left Oliver to his hopeless flirting and walked down the beach. Lilly knew she was special. There was something about this girl that screamed out to her.

As she got closer she noticed the girl was crying and Lilly was suddenly unsure of what to do. But before she could turn away or make a decision, the girl turned toward her, startled by the presence of another being.

"Hi," the girl sniffled, a perplexed look on her face.

"Um…Hi." Lilly replied shyly. "I-I'm Lilly. I saw you over at Rico's earlier, and you looked new. I mean…I've never seen you around before, and I thought maybe you'd like to be friends, I mean we don't have to be, I don't even know what school you go to or if you even live here or -"

"Lilly!"

Lilly stopped her rambling and looked at the girl.

"I'd love to be friends. My name's Miley," replied the girl in a warm southern accent.

She stuck out her hand and Lilly hesitantly shook it, feeling the soft warmth of her hand against her own.

"Hi Miley."

***

Awake. For a few moments, Lilly was unsure of where she was. She was still stuck inside her dream and not used to her new surroundings. Then she saw the sun streaming in the open doorway of the shelter and heard mosquitoes, and suddenly Miley's face came across her vision.

She brushed at Lilly's face, scaring off a few bugs as she soothed Lilly's burnt and swollen skin.

"Hey darlin'," came her deep soothing voice. "How're you feelin'?"

"Too many of them," she grumbled. "Too many of those nasty cherries…"

Miley was rubbing her arms now, making her way towards Lilly's stomach. "I figured as much. You gotta learn to slow down, cowgirl." She was rubbing circles on Lilly's stomach now, and Lilly wasn't sure if she felt soothed by the action or awakened, her body intensely aware of everywhere Miley touched as her body pressed up against Lilly's.

"How come you're not sick?"

She felt, rather than heard, Miley chuckle. "I don't think with my stomach, like you. But really, I couldn't eat much because I've been sick to my stomach off and on since the plane."

"You've been sick?" Lilly's eyes widened. She thought she'd been the only one. Miley nodded. "Ugh. Maybe I can kill myself if I try hard enough," Lilly moaned, her throat raw and scratchy from being sick all night.

"I'm sure we'll both get plenty more chances to do that." Miley stood, dusting the sand off her jeans. "Do you still feel sick? 'Cause if you don't, I'm gonna laugh at you now."

Lilly rolled a murderous eye in Miley's direction. "You wouldn't," she growled.

Miley smirked and crawled out of the shelter. Lilly followed close behind.

She found where she'd messed the sand and used sticks to clean it as best she could and covered it with clean sand. Then she went down to the lake to wash her hands and get a much needed drink.

It was still early, just past dawn, so the water was still and calm. Lilly caught her reflection in the shimmering water below and it frightened her. Her face was cut and bleeding, swollen from the bugs and sun, her hair was matted down and her eyes were slits and she was covered in dirt. Ugly, she thought. How could Miley stand to look at her?

At that moment she was almost overcome with self-pity. She was dirty, starving, bitten and hurt and so completely miserable. But at least she wasn't alone. At least she had Miley. The thought comforted her immensely.

She leaned over and took a few small drinks of the water, soothing her throat as the coolness slid through her mouth. But as soon as it hit her stomach she felt the hunger pains sharpen and she grabbed her abdomen. She had to eat.

She quickly splashed some water on her face, rubbing lightly and wincing at the pain, trying to make herself slightly more presentable before heading back up to the shelter.

Miley sat on a log Lilly had rolled to camp yesterday to serve as a bench. She was quietly humming as she attempted to weave what looked like a basket. Lilly couldn't help but smile when the girl cursed out as one of the branches snapped in half. "Dang flabbit! Stupid twig." Enchanting. That's what her personality was. As if sensing Lilly's presence, she glanced up and their eyes met. "What?"

Lilly grinned wider. "Nothing." She then headed over to the pile of berries Miley had made yesterday, uncovering the leaves she had used to keep the flies off. Lilly needed to eat some, but not such a crazy amount as she had yesterday which was probably what had brought on her sickness in the middle of the night. No, she'd eat just enough to stave off her hunger for a bit, until she could find some other kind of food. She selected only the berries that were solidly ripe, dark maroon to black and swollen in ripeness, and when she had a handful she went back down to the lake and washed them. A few small fish scattered away when she splashed the water and she wished she had a fishing line, but the berries would have to do for now. She ate them carefully, spitting out the pits this time. They were still tart but had a sweetness to them, although they seemed to make her lips a bit numb.

Now, they had a full day ahead of them. She looked up at the sky and saw a few scattered clouds but they didn't look like rain clouds. A light breeze was keeping the mosquitoes at bay as well as giving her a slight chill. She looked along the lake shore. If there was one kind of berry, there should be other kinds. Sweeter kinds, and ones that didn't make her sick.

If she kept the lake in sight as she had done yesterday she should be all right, should be able to find home again – she stopped. She had actually thought it that time. Home. It was the third day of them being stranded out here and she had thought of the shelter and Miley as home.

She turned to look at it, studied the crude work she had done yesterday. The brush made a decent wall, not exactly weather tight but it cut most of the wind. It wasn't much, but it was all they had. And then there was Miley. All right, she thought, I'll call it home.

"I'm going to find more berries," she called out to Miley as she turned and set off up the side of the lake, heading for where she had found the berry bushes earlier, her jacket-bag in her hand.

When she came to the cherry-like berries she paused. The branches were empty of birds today but still had many berries, much riper than they were yesterday. She thought of picking some to save them but the memory of last night was still fresh on her mind and she decided they needed something better to eat.

A couple hundred more yards up the shore there was a small path, where the winds had twisted and snapped the trees halfway up from the ground. There was a lot of dead wood here and Lilly once again wished she knew how to get a fire going. With the tops of the trees missing, the sun was able to reach the ground here, and Lilly noticed for the first time the small thorny bushes scattered about, covered with berries. Raspberries!

These she knew because her mother had gotten the crazy idea to garden one year and had planted raspberry bushes along the side of the house. Lilly was always picking them in the summer before they had started taking over the yard and her mom had them ripped out.

The berries were full and ripe, and so unbelievably sweet – nothing like the evil gut destroying berries from before. Lilly smiled and started eating. Oh, they were so sweet, with warm juice that filled her mouth, and she thought that she had never tasted anything this good. Soon her stomach was full, and she had more sense this time around to stop eating and not cram more down. Instead, she picked up the jacket-bag and began picking more for later. And for Miley. She would be happy when Lilly brought these back.

The morning sun was on her back, warming her, and the thought that she was actually happy crossed her mind, right before she heard a noise to her rear and she turned to see the bear.

Lilly couldn't think, or do, anything. Frozen. Her tongue, stained with berry juice, was stuck to the roof of her mouth as she stared at the bear. It was big and black, with a cinnamon-colored nose, not twenty feet from her. Larger than any bears she had seen in zoos, it was all black fur and huge, not to mention this one was also wild. Right there, in front of her.

The sun caught the ends of the hairs along it's back as the bear stood up on its hind legs and studied Lilly, just studied her, then lowered itself and moved slowly to the left, eating berries as it rolled along, delicately using its mouth to lift each berry from the stem. In seconds, it was gone, and Lilly still could not move. She was trembling in fear and disbelief that something so large could have come so close to her without her knowing. It just walked up to her and could have eaten her and she couldn't have done anything. Miley had been right earlier, they would have plenty of chances to get themselves killed out here.

Suddenly her legs were moving, running her in the opposite direction from the bear, back toward home. She would have run all the way in her body-controlling panic but after a hundred yards or so her brain finally took over and she slowed to a stop. If the bear had wanted her, it would have taken her. The bear was eating berries, not people, and had made no move to hurt her, threaten her. It had simply stood to see her better, study her, and then continued on its way eating berries.

She turned and looked back at the raspberries. The bear was gone, the birds were chirping, and she saw nothing that could hurt her. She couldn't sense any danger, not like back in California, at night, when you couldn't be out alone. Here, the bear had simply looked at her and moved on, had almost indicated that it didn't mind sharing. And the berries were so good, so sweet and rich and her body was so empty.

That convinced her and she slowly walked back to the raspberry patch and continued picking for the entire morning, although her body was now on high alert. Once when a squirrel rustled some pine needles nearby she had nearly jumped out of her skin.

When the sun was almost straight overhead the clouds began thickening and Lilly noticed the darkness settle over the forest. It started raining only a few moments later and she took what she had picked and jogged back to their camp. She had maybe three pounds of raspberries in the jacket, and had probably eaten another two pounds. She felt good.

Just as the clouds completely opened up and the rain began coming down in sheets, she reached the shelter. She could see Miley anxiously looking out the door for her, her eyes fixed on Lilly, tracking her every move with the intensity of a mountain lion stalking its prey. Lilly figured it best not to tell Miley about the bear. She didn't want to give the other girl something else to worry about. She dropped to her knees at the door and crawled inside, handing Miley the jacket as she pushed the wet hair out of her eyes. "Raspberries," she panted as she glanced back outside. The sand outside was drenched and there were rivulets running down to the lake. But inside it was dry and snug. It was home.

She lay back on the sand and watched Miley eat the berries, fingers covered in their red liquid. Her pain and stiffness was almost gone, her belly was full and she had a good taste in her mouth, and for the first time since the crash she was happy. She had brought Miley food, and she was happy.

Miley turned to her then, licking the berry juice from her fingers. "You're amazing." She held Lilly's gaze for a few seconds before her eyes dipped…"I don't know what I'd do without you."

Lilly blinked, and then glanced down at her rain-soaked shirt. Surely Miley hadn't been looking at her chest when she said that?

Later in the afternoon, as the evening came, Lilly followed Miley down to the lake where they washed the sticky berry juice from their hands and faces. Lilly kept stealing glances over at her best friend as she contemplated her new ill-advised developing crush. But she pushed the thoughts away almost as soon as they came. This could lead to nothing good, and it was in her best interest to forget about it as best she could. She headed back to the shelter to prepare for the night.

Miley came into the shelter a few moments later and lay down next to Lilly. The light was fading quickly now, but it wasn't too dark that she couldn't see the expression on the other girls face. She looked sad, and Lilly figured she was just upset about being here. She was supposed to be having a relaxing summer back in Malibu, after all, and if it hadn't been for Lilly she wouldn't even be here.

"I'm sorry," Lilly whispered into the darkness. She heard Miley turn toward her.

"What're you sorry for?" Miley's voice was husky, and confused.

"Just…all of this. It's my fault you're here."

She heard Miley sigh and pause. "Lil…don't blame yourself for any of this. If you're gonna blame someone, blame your dad or our judicial system. Because…well, because I'm glad I'm here with you, instead of bein' at home and feelin' helpless as I worry about whether or not you're alive."

Lilly turned her head to face Miley. She was close, far deeper into her personal space than was normal for them. She smiled reassuringly and the tension in Lilly's stomach shifted to something pleasant. Anticipation.

She started to fall into pretty gray-blue eyes that seemed to darken with each passing second and Lilly wasn't sure if this was due to the fading light of the late evening or something else. Adrenaline rushed through her body and an unfamiliar throbbing sensation settled between her legs.

At the same time, they turned their bodies until they were fully facing each other. They were so close Lilly could feel the body heat rolling off of Miley.

Miley inched forward slowly and warning bells screamed out in Lilly's head. Stop! Don't start this! But she couldn't move, couldn't tear her eyes away from the lips that were only inches from hers now. Her toes curled in her shoes as Miley's mouth paused a fraction of an inch away, her breath sweetly caressing her face. It smelled of raspberries.

In a lustful daze, Lilly let her eyes slide closed, trusting what she felt instead of what her rational mind was telling her. She laid her hand on Miley's upper chest, ready to push her away, but enjoying the heat of her body even more. She wound her fingers in her shirt to tug her closer and –

A loud clap of thunder sounded above them as rain began pounding down outside again, ripping them from the moment and Lilly rolled away, breathing heavily, body aching with a need she was unfamiliar with.

Shit, shit, shit. What just happened? Five years of friendship, and then one day her spunky best friend was suddenly leaving her breathless and wanting more…of her, of everything. And Lilly had almost let it take control of her, had almost kissed her. Why? What had changed? Did she mess with her brain when she hit her head during the crash, causing her to have these strange feelings the past few days? Lilly sighed, eyeing Miley out of the corner of her eye. She was lying on her back a few feet away, the occasional lightning flashes casting a series of dancing shadows across her face, shrouding it in more sensuality and mystery than any girl, or woman, had a right to.

"'Night, Lilly," came Miley's deceptively calm voice in the darkness, breaking her away from her thoughts.

Yes, there certainly was something about Miley Stewart that drew her in.

As the day caught up with her and she began drifting off to sleep, the song lyrics from the day before came floating back into her head.

_I believe it - why? Oh my...__  
__Ooh my lord...ooh my lord...I don't even know why...but..._

_Oh! This feeling it is wonderful! Don't you ever turn it off!  
__Oh! This feeling it is wonderful! Don't you ever turn it off…_

_

* * *

_

**Questions, comments, or concerns? **I really like that song. Someone once sent it to me and I always think of them when I hear it. Kind of bittersweet. I'm thinking of using it a few more times. Anywho, what did you guys think of that? I wasn't sure if I was rushing things too quickly between the two of them, like maybe I should have held off on the almost-kiss for a couple more chapters. I don't know. And what do you guys think – leave this T or change it to M and make the later chapters a bit more 'interesting'?


	8. Chapter 8

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** And so the story continues. Miley's aversion to raspberries was brought to my attention after the last chapter. Thanks ScorpioP, I had completely forgotten about that, so from now on the berries they found are salmonberries. They look very similar to raspberries but are yellowish-orange and sometimes red in color. Pretty tasty too.

* * *

_**8**_

_Lilly's eyes shot open._ In the darkness of the middle of the night she thought she heard a growl. But it must have been the wind, brushing the pine trees together and awakening her. It was still stormy out and she felt the wind blow through the opening of the shelter. She sat up and was hit with the smell.

The smell was one of musty rot, making her mind wander to graveyards and cobwebs and old death and she was suddenly terrified. She tried opening her eyes wider but she could see nothing in the darkness, not even Miley lying next to her – that is, if she was still there. It was too dark, the storm clouds blocking any light that might have shone down from the stars and the moon. But the smell was alive, and in the shelter, and it terrified her.

"Miles…" she whispered. No answer.

Slightly louder this time, "Miley!" Still no answer. Damn it.

She thought of the bear, of Bigfoot that was rumored to live in the Pacific Northwest, and every other monster she had ever seen or heard of. Her heart was hammering and suddenly jumped into her throat when she heard the slithering. Something was making a brushing sound near her feet and she kicked as hard as she could, grabbing the hatchet that she kept near her head and throwing it at the sound. But the hatchet missed, sailing into the rock wall and showering sparks and bits of rock. And her leg was instantly torn with pain as if a hundred needles had been driven into it.

"Aaahhh! Fuck!" She screamed, with pain and fear, and skittered on her backside up into the corner of the shelter.

"Lilly?" Came Miley's sleep-laden voice. "What's goin' on?"

"Shhh!!!"

She was straining to see, to hear anything. The slithering moved again, she thought toward them at first, and terror stole her breath away. She heard Miley gasp and sit up somewhere to the right of her and she wished that she was holding onto the girl, burying her head in her chest to make the monster go away.

She thought she saw a low dark form, a living shadow in the darkness, but it moved away and she thought she saw it go out of the door opening.

"What in the Sam Heck was that?" wavered Miley's voice, a whisper barely audible over Lilly's rasping breaths in and out.

Lilly shook her head then realized Miley couldn't see it. "I don't know. But whatever it was, it did something to my leg." She gingerly felt her calf, where the pain was centered and spreading to fill her whole leg. She touched a group of needles, 8 that she could count, that had been driven through her pants and into the fleshy part of her calf muscle. The pain made it feel as if dozens more had been slammed into her leg. They were stiff and sharp, pinning the cloth against her skin, and she realized what the attacker had been. "Porcupine."

"What? A porcupine?"

"Yeah, I kicked at the noise earlier and it must have slapped me with its tail or something. There's a bunch of needles in my leg." Lilly grimaced, the pain seemed to be getting worse.

"Oh, Lilly." She heard Miley moving around and she was suddenly right in front of her, Lilly could smell the warm natural essence of Miley that always reminded her of vanilla beans and oatmeal. "We shouldn't leave 'em in, they could get infected and you won't be able to sleep with 'em stickin' out of your leg."

"I can't do it. It hurts too bad!"

"You want me to fix it up? I can't see anything."

"No, I'll do it. Just…hold my hand?"

She felt Miley's cool fingers on her upper arm, then they slid down to interlace with her own fingers, gently squeezing. Even now, the act left a trail of fire down her skin.

She grasped one of the quills, held her breath, and pulled. It sent pain signals to her brain in fast waves and she let out a small cry, squeezing Miley's hand tightly. "Jeez, shouldn't it be less painful pulling them out?"

"I think porcupine quills have barbs on the end that catch the skin. Makes it difficult to pull 'em out."

"Great. Just wonderful." Lilly spat sarcastically as she grabbed another and pulled, then another. After a few more she had to stop. The pain had gone from being sharp and pointed to hotly spreading up her leg, making her catch her breath. Some of the quills were driven in deeper than the others and they tore when they came out. She breathed deeply and then went back to work, pulling three more times before she lay back in the darkness, done.

"You get 'em all?" Miley's voice was calm, always so soothing.

"Yes," she managed to croak out. The pain was filling her leg now, and with it came new waves of self-pity and tears. It was all just too much and she couldn't take it. Not like this.

She felt Miley pulling her into her arms and she collapsed into her best friends embrace, tears running down her face now and soaking Miley's shirt. She let herself be comforted, relishing the security she felt in Miley's arms as she let her tears fall. Miley just held her, slowly running her hands through her hair and letting her cry.

"It's okay, Lilly. I'm here. You're safe."

"Why? First the crash, then the bugs, then the bee sting, then the damn berries. And now this? Is the universe trying to kill me off?" Lilly couldn't take it anymore. Next time it might be something worse, and she didn't think she could do it anymore. The sobs came harder and she buried her face into Miley's neck, wrapping her arms around the other girl as if her life depended on it. Miley's arms were both gentle and firm as they securely held onto her, tenderly rubbing up and down, up and down, lulling Lilly into a calm state. She realized she had never known true comfort until now, with the sound of Miley's heart beating beneath her ear and her deep low humming, as her hands worked magic, lovingly rubbing circles on her back and stroking her long hair.

"I love you Miley." The words slipped out without her even thinking.

There was a slight hesitation before Miley replied. "Lovin' you right back, Lils." She placed a kiss on Lilly's forehead. "Now go to sleep."

She didn't know how long she lay in Miley's arms crying, but eventually her tears subsided and sleep claimed her body once again. But her sleeping pattern was changing and her sleep was more of a resting doze than a deep sleep, with small sounds awakening her twice during the rest of the night. Each time she awoke she felt Miley's arms around her, her soft warm body beneath her, and she was immediately calmed and drawn back to sleep. In her last doze before she finally awakened with the morning light, before new clouds of mosquitoes moved in to devour her, she dreamed.

In the initial segment of the dream, Oliver was standing in the middle of an empty classroom looking at her and it was clear from his expression that he was trying to tell Lilly something. His lips moved but she couldn't hear what they were saying. He began to wave his hands at Lilly, making gestures in front of his face, and worked to make a word with his mouth. But Lilly couldn't make it out. His lips made an _mmmmm_ shape but no sound came out. _Mmmmm-maaaa_. Lilly wanted desperately to hear the word, to understand what he was trying to say. She knew it was important, that Oliver was trying to help, but she couldn't make any sense of it. Oliver was getting angry now, he looked the way he did when Lilly would ignore him and pay more attention to Miley. She tried focusing again, determined to understand what Oliver was trying to tell her but suddenly he was fading away, into a fog. She tried to follow him but he vanished before she reached his side.

Then Miley came. She wasn't gesturing to Lilly but was sitting on the beach in front of her house looking at the small fire pit. For a time, nothing happened. Just Miley sitting and staring at the empty pit as if she were willing something to happen. Then she got up, put a couple of small logs and some kindling on the fire pit over some newspaper and lit a match. Lilly stared at the burning match, stared as Miley tossed it and it flew in a small arc into the fire pit and the paper and logs lit up in flames. Just as the fire was really starting to warm up, she noticed Lilly for the first time in the dream. She turned and smiled, a warm grin lighting up her face, and pointed to the fire as if to say, 'See! I made a fire!'

But all of this meant nothing to Lilly, except that she wished she had a fire and dream Miley was apparently good at making them. She saw a brown paper grocery bag in the sand next to Miley. Lilly thought it must contain graham crackers and marshmallows and chocolate. Smores were one of Miley's favorite foods, and Lilly could think only of the food and the sweet taste of chocolate. But Miley shook her head and pointed at the fire again, over and over she pointed the fire out to Lilly, made her see the flames and Lilly felt her frustration begin to rise. All right, she thought, all right, I see the fire but so what? I don't know how to make a fire, and I know I need one…I need fire…

Lilly slowly blinked her eyes open in the dim gray light of morning. She shifted slightly and became aware of the arms around her, the fingers lying on her back, her own hand that rested comfortably against Miley's waist. She was still in Miley's arms, which meant she had held her through the entire night. She was viciously thirsty and hungry but instead of getting up she decided to stay in Miley's arms a few moments longer, reveling in the warmth of her embrace. Her body was so soft and she smelled so good, even after being stranded for 4 days now. Lilly took a deep breath in before gently lifting her head and resting her upper body weight on her arm, looking down at the sleeping Miley. She looked so peaceful, her long dark lashes laying gently on her cheek, her cute button nose, and her deliciously full lips that were slightly parted in her trademark pout. Lilly couldn't tear her eyes away from those lips and she had a sudden strong desire to see what they felt like under her own. She imagined them soft and warm, and that she would taste of berries, so sweet and tender. Her heart pounded painfully hard against her ribcage and she was afraid it would wake Miley up. She finally pulled away, before she could do something that would embarrass them both.

Gently she eased out of her arms, wiping her mouth and trying to move her leg. It was stiff, like a plank of wood, and a dull pain throbbed when she tried to put too much weight on it. She quietly grabbed a handful of salmonberries and gingerly made her way out of the shelter, eating the now mushy berries and enjoying their rich sweetness as she headed down to the lake.

The water was still and calm and Lilly once again found herself staring at her reflection in the surface of the lake. Her cuts were healing and almost gone, her face still burnt and peeling and covered in dirt, and her hair was a mess. Not to mention her red puffy eyes from crying all night. She needed to take better care of herself.

After taking a few long drinks of the cool water, she set to cleaning herself up, washing her face and as much of her arms as she could manage. She rolled her pant leg up, inspecting the small needle marks that were red but luckily not swollen. An infection would not be good out here, most likely deadly, and she did not survive everything only to be taken down by an angry porcupine.

Then Lilly stared at her hair. Four days of wilderness and no brush had not done it any justice. She combed through it with her fingers as much as she could and set to pulling it back in a low braid to keep it out of her face and hopefully out of further tangles. Just as she was finishing she heard Miley heading to the lake to join her. Miley had never been a morning person and Lilly wasn't surprised that she had been waking up earlier than her every day they had been out here.

"Hey beautiful, how's your leg?" Her voice was deep with sleep, raspier than normal and with a thicker accent, as if she were too tired to control it. Lilly quickly realized that this was one of the things she was starting to love most about her, hearing that voice every morning as they woke up in their small camp.

Lilly grimaced as she stood, watching as Miley knelt down to the water to take a drink. She couldn't help herself as her eyes followed Miley's length as she bent over. When did she become such as guy? "It's all right. Stiff and sore but it looks okay." She felt slightly awkward around Miley after their almost-kiss and her breakdown in the middle of the night, and she didn't know how to act this morning.

Miley dried her hands on her jeans and grabbed Lilly's calf, rolling her pant leg up as she looked over the wound.

"Ouch! Jeez, Miles, a little warning would be nice."

"Sorry. It ain't as bad as I thought," she said, rolling the pant leg back down and standing up to look Lilly in the eyes. Miley smiled disarmingly as she cast about for something to say, obviously uncomfortable as well and unsure of where their friendship stood. "It's okay to cry every now and then Lil. We're trapped in the middle of the wilderness, you're _supposed _to be freaked out and upset, especially if you're attacked by a rodent in the middle of the night durin' a thunderstorm."

A small smile graced Lilly's lips. "Thanks."

"Anytime darlin'," she grinned back. "You look good, by the way. I like the no make-up look on you."

"You checking me out, Stewart?"

"With a body like yours, who wouldn't?"

Lilly blushed. "…Hey Miles…" She hesitated.

"What's up, Lil?"

"You really are my best friend," she said sincerely. "And I'm glad you're here with me too."

Miley's smile was wide. "You're my best bud too. And you're kinda stuck with me."

"Good," Lilly returned her smile as Miley wrapped her arms around her, pulling her into a warm hug. Lilly sighed at the contact. It felt so right, being in Miley's arms, that she never wanted to let go. Unfortunately, her stomach startled growling and Lilly disengaged herself from Miley to head back to the shelter for more berries. She was having a hard time adjusting to little food, but she felt better about clearing the air between her and Miley, setting their friendship right again.

As she entered the shelter a flash of metal caught her eye and she saw the hatchet in the sand where she had thrown it at the porcupine in the dark. She picked it up and examined it, noticing a chip in the top of the head. The nick wasn't large, but the hatchet was important to her and her father had always told her to take good care of her tools. It seemed that they were the only thing he could take care of in his life.

She shouldn't have thrown the hatchet. But maybe she could make some sort of staff or lance to help push threatening animals away. She scrambled out of the shelter to go find a piece of wood to use as a weapon when the light of the sun hit the silver of the hatchet, flashing a brilliant gold in the light. She remembered her dream then. Fire. That's what they had been trying to tell her.

When she had thrown the hatchet in the cave, it had hit the stone wall and showered sparks. Sparks could make fire!

"Yes!" She shouted, holding the hatchet in front of her as if it held the key to life.

Miley jumped and looked up from her basket weaving attempts, raising an eyebrow at Lilly as if she had gone crazy. "Hearin' voices, Lil?"

Lilly excitedly shook her head. "I think I know how to make fire!" She scrambled back into the shelter to study the wall.

Most of the stone was some form of chalky granite, or sandstone, but imbedded in it were large pieces of a harder and darker stone that stuck out as the sandstone crumbled around them. She found the piece the hatchet must have struck, where the steel had knicked into the edge of the stone. Lilly turned the head backward so she wouldn't damage the blade and hit the rock gently. Nothing happened. She struck harder and a few weak sparks skipped off the rock. She swung harder, holding the hatchet so it would hit a longer, sliding blow, and the black rock exploded in fire. Sparks flew so heavily that several of them skittered and jumped on the sand beneath the rock and she smiled as she struck again and again, watching the sparks fly.

Miley started clapping from the doorway, an excited grin lighting up her eyes. Lilly knew she must have a similar look on her own face as hope sparked within her just like the ones coming from the hatchet. They could have fire here. The hatchet would give them fire.

* * *

**Questions, comments, or concerns? **I had a dream about this story last night. It was strange.

Anyway, I tried harder in adding more Miley to this chapter, as some of you suggested doing. I hope it was to your liking. And thank you all so much for your lovely and helpful reviews. Some people have mentioned doing a chapter from Miley's POV or from their families. I thought about it. I know I'm not going to do a Miley chapter but I could do a chapter of their families during the search. I'm leaning toward no though, since I originally wanted this all from Lilly's POV as the original story was from Brian's.

And I'm glad you guys are enjoying the slow build-up, because yes, it will continue to be slow :) I'm still deciding exactly what will happen between them, it's the next chapter I'm working on (not the next one you're going to read) so I need to decide soon. They are 16 in this story, maybe 17 (I might add in Lilly's birthday…it's in the summer, right? It seems like it is from the movie and show), so I'm more hesitant to have them take their relationship that far. But at the same time, their feelings are strong, and they've known each other so long…I'm posting a one-shot later today, purely M with no plot, so you guys tell me.


	9. Chapter 9

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** The song is 'Lilly' by Pink Martini.

* * *

_**9**_

_Okay, so it was a long way from sparks to actual fire_. Lilly was finding this out the hard way. After repeatedly hitting the hatchet against the stone with no luck she was beginning to become disheartened. She had dug the hard, dark stone out of the sandstone in the shelter and now sat in the middle of their camp, trying to light a small branch on fire.

"Ahem." Miley cleared her throat from behind her.

Lilly turned, wiping the drop of sweat forming on her brow to find Miley standing with some dried grass and twigs. So real Miley was just as genius as dream Miley when it came to making fires it appeared.

"Thanks, Miles."

"That's what friends are for. Out here in the middle of nowhere, anyway," Miley grinned, retreating back to her spot on the log.

However, the grass and twigs didn't help either. The small sparks just sputtered and died, occasionally catching a piece of dried grass but immediately dying out. The twigs, even broken into small pieces, were even worse. Not even a combination of the two would catch fire and spread. It was extremely aggravating.

She needed something finer, something fluffy, to catch the sparks and help ignite the grass and twigs. Shredded paper, like dream Miley had used for the fire pit, would be nice. But they had no paper. Or did they?

"Miles, do you still have that twenty?" Of course she does, it's not like there was any place to spend it out here.

"Yeah." Miley dug the folded bill out of her pocket.

Lilly began shredding it to pieces but stopped when she heard Miley make a noise. "What? Were you planning on using it?"

"No…it's just hard to see you do that. Plus, it's a federal offense, ain't it?"

"I really don't think anyone will know or care if they found out Miles."

"Okay, okay. Do what you have to do, I'm not stoppin' ya."

Lilly continued ripping it into small pieces, making a small pile of the former bill. She then struck another blow of the hatchet against the stone. Nothing. The pieces of paper just wouldn't take the sparks. There had to be a way…

"We're so close," she said, looking over her shoulder at Miley who sat on their log and was watching Lilly's efforts intently. "Mankind has had fire for millions of years. Am I dumber than a caveman, or something?"

"Well…sometimes…" Miley drawled, a devilish grin on her face.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence Miles," Lilly replied dryly.

"Anytime, loser," she deadpanned.

"Diva."

"That's it, no more spoonin' at night for you. Not if yer gonna be goin' on about me bein' a prima donna."

Lilly grinned. "Well if I can get this fire going, I won't need your body heat to keep me warm, no matter how much you beg me."

"In your dreams."

Lilly chuckled. The awkwardness was gone and they were back to their usual playful relationship – flirty, and sometimes a little suggestive, but it was always innocent. _Was_ being the key word here, because now their banter held a little bit of truth for Lilly.

She turned back to her fire attempts. If only they had more paper…

Not twenty feet to their right, leaning out over the water were a few birch trees and Lilly sat looking at them for almost two minutes before they registered in her mind. They were beautiful white trees with bark like clean, speckled paper. Paper!

"Aha!" She jumped up and moved down to the trees, hearing Miley laugh at her retreating form. Some of the bark was peeling, lifting up from the trunk in tiny tendrils. Lilly picked a few loose, rolling them in her fingers. There were dry, nearly powdery, and they seemed flammable. She pulled and twisted more off the tree, gathering enough until she had a wad the size of a softball.

Just as she was turning to head back to Miley, her hand grazed the brush beneath the tree. A prickling pain began burning her hand and she dropped the fire starting ball of bark as she gripped her palm.

"Ow! What the hell was that?" Lilly yelled as she began waving her hand back and forth, trying to cool the burning sensation on her palm.

Miley hurried over to her side and gently took her hand. "Nettles," she said simply, her body visibly relaxing as she realized it wasn't something serious. "I know, they can be painful."

"They are! What the hell are nettles?" Lilly was staring at her hand, looking for stingers or other marks that would account for the excruciating pain.

"Don't ya know? Aren't you the tomboy that grew up playin' in the woods with Oliver?"

Lilly glared at her. "Does it look like I know what they are?"

Miley ignored her remark and pointed to the plant just behind her that she must have brushed against. "Those are nettles. Trust me, you'll learn quickly what they look like. They've got prickles on the bottoms of the leaves with some kind of stingin' substance," she explained gently as she held on to Lilly's hand longer than was necessary. "The sting only lasts about seven minutes, then it'll be gone."

"Seven minutes!" Lilly nearly screamed as the pain was growing worse. It was going to be a very long seven minutes.

"I'm sorry Lil. You're not havin' the best of luck out here, are ya?"

Lilly shook her head. She wanted to cry and feel sorry for herself but she knew there was no sense in that. It had been the most important rule of survival she'd learned so far, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn't work. It wasn't just that it was wrong to do, or that it was embarrassing to completely break down in front of Miley, someone she was trying to be strong and brave for. It simply just didn't work. When she had cried before, feeling sorry for herself for all the horrible things that had happened to them and especially to her, nothing had changed. The self-pity had accomplished nothing. Lilly had still been hurt, stranded, and hungry. So she refused to feel sorry for herself any more.

She relaxed as Miley gently held her hand, blowing on the agitated skin and softly stroking her palm. "Thanks. Sorry, that just…I wasn't expecting that," she mumbled shyly as Miley continued to dote on her hand.

"Hey, it's okay. I've had my share of run-ins with the plant back in the woods behind Mamaw's house. They ain't fun. You can make tea out of the leaves if you boil 'em though." Miley brought Lilly's hand to her lips suddenly and kissed the skin that had been burning moments before, creating a new sensation of burning that brought a blush to Lilly's cheeks. "I think that got her done. Just be more careful. You're clumsier than Aunt Pearl after drinking a cup of Uncle Earl's homemade whiskey bourbon."

Lilly shyly smiled as she grabbed the ball of bark she had dropped earlier and headed back to her fire making efforts, her mind on Miley's lips that had just been on her skin. She shook her head, cursing the silly teenage crush that she couldn't seem to shake. But it wasn't all her fault. Miley was just too affectionate, too physical. And Lilly was not immune to her touch. In fact, it was affecting her more and more as time went on and she found herself craving it too.

Back at the hatchet and stone, Lilly arranged the birch bark peelings in front of the black rock. As an afterthought she threw on the remaining grass and twigs. She struck the rock and a stream of sparks fell into the bark and quickly died, but she noticed one of the small threads of bark had seemed to glow a bit brighter before it died. So, the material had to be finer, she thought.

She started ripping the bark, first using her fingernails and then the sharp edge of the hatchet, cutting it into fine, thin slivers. It was painstaking, slow work, and Miley soon joined her, humming the tune to _Supergirl_.

"Miles? Can I be honest with you about something?"

"Always. What's on your mind?"

"That's my least favorite song of yours. Actually, I think it's stupid."

Miley let out a throaty laugh. "I know, just don't tell my daddy. Any other songs you don't like?"

"Well…now that you mention it…"

"You better be careful, girl."

Lilly laughed. "I'm just joking, you know I'm Hannah's number one fan."

"Nice save, slick. I know you have a thing for Hannah Montana."

"What can I say? Hannah's hot."

Miley blushed. "Thanks."

Lilly eyed Miley curiously. That wasn't her usual reaction to their playful flirting and it intrigued her. "So, will you sing me something good?"

"Any requests?"

Lilly just shook her head. After a few minutes Miley started singing.

_Lilly comes when you stop to call her__  
__Lilly runs when you look away__  
__Lilly leaves kisses on your collar__  
__Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, stay!_

_Lilly comes when you stop to call her,__  
Lilly runs when you look away__,__  
Lilly leaves kisses on your collar,__  
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, stay!_

_One day she passed him by,__  
a twinkle in her__ eye,__  
he said "she was meant for me!"__  
But when he turned around,__  
he lost what he had found.  
Oh where can his Lilly be?_

_Lilly comes when you stop to call her__,__  
Lilly runs when you look away__,__  
Lilly leaves kisses on your collar__,__  
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, stay!_

_He searched the city streets__,__  
he tempted her with treats__,__  
but nobody stopped to taste them__.__  
Some are in his pocket__,__  
some are in a locket__.__  
He couldn't bring himself to waste them._

_Ever since she's gone__,__  
some days he can't go on__,__  
she ruined him for another__.__  
Pressed up against the__ glass,__  
he prays that she will pass__.__  
Now he's living with his mother_

_Lilly comes when you stop to call her__,__  
Lilly runs when you look away__,__  
Lilly leaves kisses on your collar__,__  
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, stay!_

_Lilly comes when you stop to call her__,__  
Lilly runs when you look away__,__  
Lilly leaves kisses on your collar__,__  
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly, stay!_

_Stay, stay, stay, stay!_

They went back to shredding the bark and when the song was over, Lilly turned to Miley, studying her face, trying to understand what the song meant to her and what Miley was thinking. But Miley's face was carefully composed and expressionless so Lilly chose not to comment and went back to work. It took them well over two hours, stopping to take water and berry breaks and Miley entertaining them with random songs, until they had a ball of fluff about as big as a grapefruit. The sun was on their back and Lilly felt content, sitting with Miley and working together. They felt like a team, it was nice.

She positioned the nest of bark at the base of the rock and slammed the back of the hatchet down across the black stone. A cloud of sparks rained down, most of them missing the nest, but some hit and a few found the fuel and grew, smoldered and caused the bark to take on a red glow.

Then they went out.

"Close." Lilly repositioned the nest, made a small dent in its center, and struck again.

More sparks, a slight glow, then nothing. She then hit the rock with a series of blows, as fast as she could. The sparks flew out like a golden waterfall, and at first they seemed to take and find life, but they all died.

"Damn it! I would kill for a book of matches right now."

"You wanna take a break? We've been at this all afternoon."

"No." Lilly thought back to school. Had they ever learned what made fire? She shook her head, trying to focus her thoughts. What makes fire?

"Okay..." Miley rested her chin on her palm and stared at Lilly, blowing a small bang out of her eyes.

That was it. Oxygen. They needed to blow on the sparks to make them grow. A smile grew on her face. "Miley, you're a genius!"

"Uh… thanks?"

"Air! The fire needs air! You need to blow on it when the sparks catch."

"Oh. Well that I can do."

Lilly made the nest ready again, held the hatchet backward, tensed, and struck four quick blows. Sparks flew down and Miley leaned forward and blew.

Too hard. There was an intense glow, and then it was gone. "Okay, next time don't blow so hard so that the flame doesn't go out."

Another set of strikes, more sparks. Miley blew lightly this time, aiming the stream of air at the brightest spot glowing in the nest. The sparks grew. The red glow moved from the sparks themselves into the bark, growing and crawling up the bark hairs, catching other threads of bark and growing until there was a pocket of red as big as a quarter.

When Miley paused to take a breath, the red ball suddenly burst into flame. "Fire!" she yelled, glancing up at Lilly with a smile. "We made fire!"

But the flames were thick and burning fast, consuming the ball of bark quickly. They needed to feed the flames to keep them going. Lilly quickly grabbed the dried grass and twigs from before and put them on top of the bark, laughing in delight when they lit on fire.

But they would burn up fast, and they needed more. They couldn't let the flames go out.

Lilly jumped up quickly and ran to the pines next to their camp, breaking off the low, dead limbs. These she threw down next to Miley and went back for more. Then she squat down by their baby fire to break the branches and feed the hungry flames. When the small wood had caught and was burning well, they both went out and found larger wood, not relaxing until the fire was burning bright and strong, the yellow and red flames dancing around as the dry wood happily crackled as it burned. Next they leaned against the log bench and smiled at each other.

Lilly shut her eyes for a moment as Miley situated herself against the log, their shoulders brushing. Common sense told her to move away, away from her touch, but she couldn't make herself move. It felt too good. Miley moved her hand, resting it lightly on Lilly's thigh.

Lilly managed to stifle her moan, but the hand on her leg was hot, burning her skin through her pants with a heat that had nothing to do with the fire. Blood pounded through her veins. She cleared her throat, but her voice was still husky when she spoke. "Hello, fire."

Miley turned on her side, facing Lilly. Lilly felt as if her heart would explode at any moment at the nearness of her best friend. She was certain Miley could hear it as it pounded out of control. She kept her eyes glued firmly on the fire, so afraid to even look at Miley as she lay next to her.

"Dork," came her teasing voice.

Lilly drew her knees up, effectively brushing off Miley's hand and resting her cheek there as she dared a look at Miley. "Yeah, but you love me anyway."

"Don't know why, but I do," Miley grinned as she stretched out more in front of the fire, breaking her contact with Lilly. "Whoo doggies! I sure do love a good campfire. Oh, lord, just smell it!"

"You are sounding more like your dad every day."

Miley's eyes grew wide. "You did not just say that."

"Oh, I think I did."

Miley lunged at Lilly then, tackling her down to the sand and straddling her waist, her hands going to Lilly's sides and tickling.

"Ah! Miley, stop!" Lilly laughed, gasping for breath as Miley continued her attack.

"Not until you take it back!"

"Okay, okay. I surrender. You don't sound anything like that old hill-billy. I wouldn't even know you were Robbie Ray Stewart's daughter!"

Miley stopped then. "Much better." She was still on top of her, her face less than a foot away from Lilly's, and her eyes became serious. She didn't move, didn't hardly breathe. Lilly wasn't breathing at all. Miley swallowed and leaned forward a fraction of an inch, her eyes straying to Lilly's lips and for an instant Lilly was sure that Miley was going to kiss her. Then she rolled to the side.

Lilly lay still for a few moments, catching her breath and stilling her heart, almost groaning in frustration. This was torture. Her body was thrumming with arousal now, making it hard to think, to process what had happened. All she knew was that something was happening to their friendship. And it scared her, because she liked it, but she didn't know what it meant for them or how Miley even felt.

After a few moments Miley began chuckling and her laughter quickly became infectious. Lilly soon found herself laying in the sand laughing along with her and in next to no time they were both in hysterics, clutching their stomachs as they rolled in the sand in front of the fire, gasping for air. The laughter died down a few minutes later and Lilly turned her head toward Miley who was staring up at the sky with a smile on her face. Lilly studied her profile for a few minutes, memorizing the details, before she spoke. "I should go get more firewood."

Miley turned to look at her, a foreign look in her eyes that Lilly didn't remember seeing before. "Okay," her voice was husky. "Mind if I stay here? I want to finish my baskets so that we have something to get the salmonberries in."

"Yeah." Lilly stood, dusting the sand from herself as she glanced out at the lake and then down at Miley. "I'll be back," she said, doing her best Terminator impression as she began walking backwards toward the woods. She stumbled, almost falling on her butt, and Miley let out another bark of laughter.

"I told ya you were clumsy. Watch where you're walkin', I don't want you comin' back here with another injury."

"Yes ma'am," Lilly nodded before turning around, walking off into the trees to gather wood with a smile on her face. She was content. She had fire to warm her body and Miley to warm her soul and she thought: I wouldn't trade this for anything.

No, she wouldn't trade Miley for anything.

* * *

**Questions, comments, or concerns?** Poor Lilly. Everything bad always happens to her :) And yeah, I did the whole cheesy and cliché straddling/tickling scene. Sorry, I couldn't help myself :) What did you guys think? Like the Lilly song?

And I'm sorry to have to do this to you guys, but for the next couple of weeks I'll only be able to update once a week. I've got a lot of group projects (in 4 of my 5 classes) to work on and a bit of catching up to do. But there is a chance for one or two more one-shots, as I've got a couple started. It all just depends on how much sleep I want to get :)

I also wanted to say thanks for all the feedback. You guys are truly awesome!


	10. Chapter 10

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** Another short chapter I tried to make longer. I just saw 'The Last Song,' and thought it was a huge coincidence. Keep reading to know what I'm talking about (if you've seen the movie, that is). And thanks again to Gerri Hill for some inspiration for the dream.

* * *

_**10**_

_Lilly grabbed as many dead limbs as she could carry_, and when she had a large pile of them she sat near the fire, on the other end of the log bench as Miley. It was getting into the warm middle part of the day and she was hot. She was also nervous, as her mind had been wandering while she was gathering fire wood, and it kept coming back to Miley and what had happened over the past few days.

Instead of speaking to Miley, who was engrossed in her basket weaving again, Lilly broke down some branches into small pieces and fed the fire. She didn't want to let it go out, ever. And so she sat through a long part of the day, keeping the flames even, eating from their stock of salmonberries, drinking from the lake when she was thirsty, and occasionally chatting with Miley. An awkwardness had settled over them and Lilly was unsure what had created it.

In the late afternoon, with her face smeared with smoke and her skin red from the heat, Lilly finally began to think ahead to what they needed to do. They would need a large woodpile to get through the night, as it would be impossible to find wood in the dark. It would also be nice to have heat in the shelter as they certainly couldn't sleep out in the open next to the fire.

She made certain the fire had enough wood, trusting Miley to keep it going, and went out into the nearby woods for a good fuel supply, the previous branches she had scavenged earlier almost gone. She made her way up the hill from the campsite where three large white pines had been blown over onto each other during a wind storm. They were dead now, dry and filled with weathered dry limbs – enough for many days. She chopped and broke and carried wood back to the camp, stacking the pieces under the overhang of the ledge until she had what she thought to be an enormous pile. It was six feet long and as high as her head. Between her trips she had stopped to add small pieces to the fire to keep it going, each time lingering and taking small glances at Miley who was either very absorbed in her work or had a sudden unwillingness to talk to her besides a few short words at a time.

The light was beginning to fade as the evening came upon them and Lilly decided to start the fire in the shelter. She chose a spot far enough away from the door to keep it from burning but would leave ample room for them to sleep next to one another. Lilly still didn't want to be far away from Miley, especially in the middle of the night. She set up a small log cabin that she'd seen her father do on the few times they'd gone camping as a family and then brought in a flaming branch, bringing the flames in at the base of the cabin and watching as the branches took light.

The curve of the rock back made an almost perfect drawing flue that carried the smoke up through the cracks of the roof but held the heat. If they kept the fire small it would be perfect and would keep anything like the porcupine from coming through the door again.

A guard, she thought.

Miley soon joined her in the shelter, eyeing the new fire with appreciation as she sat down next to Lilly and set her finished baskets to the side. She had finished making two large bowls that would be helpful in their berry picking efforts, and hopefully for any other food they might come across.

"Good job," Lilly commented, nodding toward Miley's crude handiwork.

"Thanks," was her quiet response as she smiled shyly and began poking at the fire with a stick.

It was fading to twilight, when the mosquitoes normally made their attack, when Lilly made the wonderful discovery that the smoke from the fire drove them away. The mosquitoes had nearly driven them mad and the thought of being rid of them lifted her spirits immensely. She desperately wanted to share in this newfound happiness with Miley but she didn't know what to say. Miley was acting unusually distant.

Strangely, it was Miley who broke the silence first. "This fire makes quite a bit of smoke. I saw it curlin' up into the trees when I was outside."

"That's good. Maybe we can build a signal to attract the attention of any planes that might fly overhead." The exchange was strained, business-like. Lilly didn't like it, but she guessed forced conversation was better than no conversation at all.

Miley simply nodded her head.

Lilly sighed. She couldn't handle this, the awkward silence and the strained dialogue. "I'll bet you can't guess what I'm having for dinner tonight." Lilly nudged Miley with her shoulder.

Miley gave her a suspicious look. "Berries and water?" she finally said, knowing it was the only thing they'd had for days, the only food they knew how to acquire out here.

"Ha. Nice try." Lilly smiled triumphantly. "I'm having water and berries."

Miley rolled her eyes but smiled, just a tiny bit, anyway. It was an improvement.

They ate the rest of the now mushy salmonberries in silence and Lilly was happy to see Miley eating more than normal. "Miles, how about I re-braid your hair tonight?"

Even with just the firelight, Lilly could see her expression brighten. "Sure."

She motioned for Miley to sit on the ground in front of her and leaned back against the rock wall. They hadn't washed their hair in days but Miley's hair still felt silky soft. Lilly raked her fingers gently through it, making sure to work out any knots with the utmost care.

"So," Miley tentatively began. "How is your leg?"

"It's loosened up a bit, but it still aches."

Miley nodded. "I'm probably next. It's only a matter of time before the universe evens the score."

Lilly began plaiting her hair, taking a moment to think. It was only a matter of time before something else happened to them. But for the first time since the crash, she thought that they might be getting a handle on things, might be starting to do something other than just sit. They had a good shelter, they had made fire, and they had found at least one food source. They needed to get more berries, and they also needed more wood, but they could look tomorrow. And maybe start working on building a signal fire.

She finished off the braid, enjoying the feeling of Miley's hair against her fingers.

"Can I -" Slowly, Miley started to lean back against her, giving Lilly the opportunity to push her away. Lilly just grinned.

"Sure," she said, letting Miley's back rest against her chest while trying to hide the happiness in her voice.

"Just for a minute," Miley said quickly. "My back is sore from hunching over all the time and -"

"Shh. You're fine." The fire was hot and Miley was warm and felt so nice against her. Tentatively, Lilly wrapped one arm around her slender waist and gave her a hug. She felt Miley stop breathing, but then she patted her arm and let out a long, satisfied breath as her entire body relaxed against Lilly's.

Lilly felt like she'd died and gone to heaven.

They were quiet for a long time, soaking in each other's company and the crackles of the fire as Lilly's mind began to wander to the dark-haired girl lying in her arms, as they'd been doing all day.

She was scared of her feelings and they almost made her sick to her stomach with dread. She knew these thoughts weren't normal, that having a crush on your best girl friend wasn't something that everybody did. She knew what it must mean. And this thought scared her even more. She didn't want to be different. She didn't want to want Miley. But she did. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized about herself.

Almost all of the girls she knew had some sort of celebrity crush - Robert Pattinson, Joshua Jackson, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio…the list went on. They would plaster pictures of them in their lockers and talk about their latest dirty dream starring said celebrity hottie. Lilly had never done this. The only pictures and posters she had plastered everywhere were of Hannah Montana. Yes, she had chased Orlando Bloom at a Hannah party once, but that was as Lola, and it was something she thought she was supposed to do. As if going through the motions would make it true, and she would suddenly start crushing on these guys that everyone thought were so cute. But she had mainly chalked all of this up to an unattainable male fantasy that she was too smart to fall for.

Except, she also had never wanted or desired any of the boys at school or on the beach that all the girls were always fawning over, even Miley herself sometimes. She could admit they were attractive, but they never drove her mad with passion and she never found herself staring at their bodies and imagining dirty things, her body reacting to them. The few guys she had dated were okay, but she always had to force herself through the actions. Okay, now I need to hold his hand, and now I need to kiss him goodnight, and now he's sticking his disgusting slimy tongue in my mouth…

But she had never ogled the girls, either. And she never found herself wanting them physically, wanting to kiss them and feel their skin against hers as people often talked about. Except for now. Miley was making her have these thoughts, making her body heat up and sweat just by looking at her. Her dear, sweet Miley that she would do anything for was suddenly all her brain could think about and she had to force herself not to start mentally undressing her. She was getting hot and bothered, and this would not be wise as the girl was currently wrapped up in her arms.

Lilly's lustful feelings were like a boulder running downhill. Slow and ominous at first, but unstoppable once they really got going.

Oh, God, she wanted her best friend. Physically, mentally, emotionally…she wanted all of Miley. In love? Maybe. Or maybe just the feelings associated with that first real crush. But God, lying here at night, she ached with the longing to wrap herself completely around Miley, to touch her, and not in the innocent way she was doing now. The desire to kiss Miley was nearly too much.

A single tear leaked out of Lilly's eye and travelled down her cheek, just as lonely as she felt right now. These feelings could go nowhere, could never be reciprocated, and she was only bringing herself more heartache by acknowledging them.

It was in her best interest to force them away, forget about them, and go back to only wanting to be Miley's best friend, if that's all they ever were in the first place…

With the fire cutting the coolness of the night and Miley's warm body snuggled into hers, Lilly's eyes finally closed to sleep as her mind brought the memories again.

***

More memories were drifting over her unconscious state, playing like an old movie in her mind…

"But, I don't know how to play pool, Miley."

"It's easy. I'll show you. And it'll give us somethin' to do while Daddy and Uncle Earl close the bar down."

Oliver sat stiffly on a stool near the pool table, his eyes darting around the room of the bar nervously. He stuck out like a sore thumb dressed in his preppy skater clothes in the room full of cowboy hats and leather.

"I don't think Oliver likes it here," Lilly whispered.

"Who could blame him? We're in redneck hell. But we can leave if ya want."

"It's alright. I said I wanted the full Tennessee experience, so bring it on."

Miley took a cue stick and held it out, eyeing the straightness. "This one'll do." She handed it to Lilly, then grabbed another. "Oliver? You sure you don't wanna play?"

He shook his head. "I'm fine just watching you guys."

Miley took the blue chalk cube and rubbed the tip of her cue stick then walked over to Lilly. "Here, rub the tip. Keeps it from slippin' when it hits the ball."

"Okay." Lilly watched intently as Miley put a couple quarters in the table, putting the balls that were dispensed below into a triangle thing, moving them around, one by one. "What are you doing?"

"Rackin' 'em. You don't want the balls in order." Miley shrugged. "Good enough." She picked up the white ball in her hand. "This is the cue ball. We use it to break and hit the other balls."

She bent over, eyeing the table, her cue stick sliding back and forth between her fingers like a pro. Then she drew the stick back, slamming it hard into the cue ball. The colored and striped balls scattered evenly across the table.

"Good one," Oliver said.

"You sure you don't wanna play, Oliver?" Miley offered.

"No, thanks. I'll just watch."

Lilly skeptically eyed the table. "Now what?"

"Well, since none of the balls went in on the break, the table's open. You can either have solids or stripes, depending on what you hit in first." Miley raised her eyebrows teasingly and pointed to a blue one near the back corner pocket. "The two ball will be easy for you."

"I don't know what to do…I've never done this before," Lilly whined as she once again eyed the table with apprehension.

Miley stepped close. "Here, I'll show you." She stood behind Lilly, her hands on Lilly's hips moving her at an angle to the table. "Just watch the ball, Lilly," Miley huskily whispered into her ear.

As Miley folded her body around Lilly, hips tucked intimately against her backside, arms mirroring her own as Miley's hand closed over her fingers, Lilly's vision slowly blurred. She was only dimly aware of her arm moving with Miley's, yet she was intensely aware of Miley's warm body pressing against her own. She relaxed and let Miley take over as the cue stick thrust in her arms, slamming the two ball into the corner pocket.

"Good shot," Miley whispered against her ear. Lilly still didn't move.

She was very aware of her heart pounding against her chest and not much else. She finally turned, her eyes meeting Miley's—blue on blue—and she felt shaken by what she saw there. Then Miley moved away, giving her room.

"You're a natural, Lils," Miley said.

Lilly nodded. "Let's do it again."

The memory was so real that she could smell the smoke in the bar, feel how her heart reacted to Miley's body being so close, could remember Oliver's expression as he watched them, etched in confusion and understanding…

***

Lilly slept hard and wasn't sure what awakened her as her eyes fluttered open in the darkness, her mind going over the dream she'd just had. She glanced at Miley who had rolled away at some point during the night and was fast asleep, dead to the world. The fire had burned down but she stirred it with a piece of wood, uncovering a bed of coals still glowing hot and red. With small pieces of wood and careful blowing she soon had the blaze going again.

That was close, and she needed to make sure they didn't let the flames die out, even if that meant sleeping in short intervals. She tried to think of a way to regulate their sleep but it made her sleepy just thinking about it and she lay down again to close her eyes. It was then that she heard the noise outside.

It wasn't unlike the sound the porcupine had made, something dragging and slithering across the sand outside of the shelter. But when she stuck her head out the door opening, she couldn't see anything in the darkness.

Whatever had been making the noise stopped in a few moments and she thought she heard sloshing at the shoreline. But she had the fire now, with plenty of wood, so she wasn't as scared as she'd been just last night.

She fell asleep again, dozing lightly and awakening again at dawn, the gray light filtering in through the shelter door. She added more wood to the still-smoking fire and then crawled outside to stretch, her arms over her head. She felt the familiar tight knot of hunger in her stomach and stared down at the lake and saw the tracks.

They were strange claw marks, with a center line between the two prints as if whatever had made them had some kind of flat bottom that dragged in the middle, extending from the lake shore to a small pile of sand and then back to the water again. She squatted down to study them, trying to make sense of the tracks.

Some kind of water animal must have come up from the lake for a reason that had to do with the pile of sand. She brushed the top off gently with her hand but found only more damp sand so she carefully dug deeper, gently scraping the sand away, until about four inches down. There she reached a small chamber containing almost perfectly round eggs, slightly larger than the size of table tennis balls.

Of course! It had been a turtle. She remembered learning about sea turtles coming up onto beaches and laying their eggs in the sand. They would then leave them, expecting the baby turtles to crawl to the ocean on their own when they hatched, something that was innate in the species to know to do. There must be freshwater turtles that did the same. One must have come during the night to lay eggs, and that was what had awakened her.

Eggs. Food.

Lilly's stomach tightened and rolled and made a noise as she looked at the eggs. It was as if her stomach had eyes of its own and was demanding food, the eggs causing it to scream out to eat. Her whole body was craving food and with such an intensity that it quickened her breath.

She reached into the nest and pulled the eggs out one at a time. There were seventeen of them, each as round as a ball, and white. They had leathery shells that gave instead of breaking when she squeezed them.

When she had heaped them on the sand in a pyramid, feeling as rich as ever, she suddenly realized that she didn't know how to eat them.

They had a fire, but no way to cook them, and the thought of eating a raw egg disgusted her. She had watched Oliver eat them raw, claiming they would help him grow muscles and bring ladies onto the Ollie Trolley, but she didn't think she could do it. She had watched as Oliver drank down the runny part and the yolk and had nearly lost her breakfast.

Still, she thought as her stomach growled again, some people ate even more disgusting things. Like bees and grasshoppers and ants. And if they could do that, she could certainly get a raw egg down.

She picked one up and tried to break the shell, but it was surprisingly tough. After struggling with it for a few moments, she grabbed the hatchet and sharpened a stick, poking a small hole in the egg. She widened the hole with her finger and looked inside. Just an egg. It had a dark yellow yolk and not as much white as she thought there should be.

Just an egg. Food. Just an egg she had to eat. Raw.

She looked out across the lake and slowly raised the egg to her mouth, closing her eyes and sucked and squeezed the egg at the same time and swallowed as fast as she could.

It was greasy, almost oily, and she gagged as she forced her throat to swallow the runny substance tasting like motor oil. Her whole body seemed to convulse with the disgusting taste, but her stomach took it and didn't throw it back up. In fact, it demanded more.

She grabbed a second egg, once again poking a hole in the top and enlargening it so that she could swallow the egg down. She raised the egg to her mouth again, and just as the tough skin touched her lips, Miley's voice startled her.

"What in Sam Heck are you doin'?"

She lowered the egg from her mouth, relieved that she wasn't eating it just yet but also frustrated as her stomach loudly grumbled once again. She glanced up at Miley and was momentarily stunned into silence. God, even grungy she was beautiful. Lilly pushed the thought away.

"Turtle eggs. I was going to eat them."

"Raw?"

"Well…yeah. You have a better way?"

"Actually, yes." Miley held her hand out for an egg. When Lilly handed her the one she had been about to eat, Miley turned on her heel and headed back to the shelter, disappearing through the door.

Lilly let out an exasperated sigh and followed her. Inside, Miley was digging a small hole in the sand with a stick, right next to the fire.

"What are you doing?"

"Cookin' you breakfast. Now go bring some more of those eggs in here." Lilly turned to head back down the beach when Miley called out to her. "And bring that stick! If we don't poke a hole in the top, they'll explode!"

Lilly grabbed five more eggs, leaving ten piled in the soft sand on the shore. She wanted to grab more, wanted to eat more, but a part of her said to hold back, save the rest for later. Instead she brought the five eggs in to Miley who was diligently turning the egg in the sand. She sat next to her and began poking holes in the tops of the remaining eggs, passing them off to Miley who buried them in the sand next to the fire.

It took about eight minutes, but the eggs were finally done and Miley handed her one. It was hot to the touch and smelled like a hardboiled egg but a little smoky. She ripped it open and took a bite. Hot, but delicious, and so much better than eating it raw. She could almost kiss Miley she was so happy, but decided that wasn't the best idea.

She had no problem getting the cooked eggs down and she ate her share of them in no time at all. In fact, she even went back and licked the inside of the shells clean, her hunger now roaring fully. She wondered if she could eat the shells, thinking there must be some nutritional value to them, but when she tried they were too leathery to chew.

Miley, however, chose to eat her eggs slowly, almost torturously slowly, and Lilly could only stare as she delicately ate her breakfast. She literally had to turn away from her so that she could not see the eggs, the temptation to rip them out of Miley's hands was strong and she knew she mustn't.

"Ain't nothin' better than fresh eggs for breakfast!"

Breathe. You already ate your eggs. Those are Miley's. "Where'd you learn to cook eggs like that?"

"Daddy. Another of his 'Back when I was a boy…' stories. The old man is useful for some things, I guess."

Lilly nodded, still thinking of the eggs down on the beach. They should store them somewhere in the shelter, and eat only one a day for a little protein. She fought the hunger down again. She would control herself, take the remaining eggs and store them and save them, eating one a day. Repeat. Save the eggs and only eat one a day.

She realized as she thought this that she had forgotten about the rescuers coming. Surely, they would come before they could eat all the eggs one day at a time. They should be coming soon.

She had forgotten to think about the search and rescuers and that wasn't good. She had to keep thinking about them because if she forgot, then maybe they would forget them. And she had to keep hoping.

They had to keep hoping.

* * *

**Questions, comments, or concerns?** I hope that didn't feel too forced. It'll get better though. I've got lots of good plans for future chapters lined up :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** I'm very sorry it took me three weeks to get this update to you guys! I have a few excuses, but they don't matter. I'm done with finals on Thursday afternoon, so I should get back to my regular updating schedule soon! Now, go read and enjoy :)

* * *

_**11**_

_There were things to do, _Lilly thought as she mentally went over her list from last night.

First she transferred all the eggs from the beach into the shelter, reburying them near their sleeping area. It took all her willpower to keep herself from eating another one, but she moved them, and once they were out of sight it was easier again. The last thing she wanted to do was lose her self-control and disappoint Miley, and she was proud of her restraint. She added more wood to their fire in the shelter before stepping out and glancing down to the lake where Miley had disappeared.

Miley had spent the morning bustling about, cleaning the camp area and appearing busy when there really wasn't anything to do. All she had done was smooth out the sand where they slept and thrown the egg shells into the bushes at the edge of camp. Then she had headed down to the water, saying something about rinsing out her jacket to clean out the berry juice that had soaked in. Lilly understood that it was a mental thing – she herself had gotten depressed when she let her mind wander to the fact that they hadn't been rescued yet. When she made herself busy and had something to do, the depression seemed to leave.

And there were plenty of things to do. But when Lilly glanced down at the lake, her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. There was Miley, washing her clothes…topless. Heat spread to Lilly's face as she stood transfixed, unable to take her eyes off Miley or to remember how to breathe. Good God, she was perfect. The warmth that had started at her face and chest spread across Lilly's entire body and she trembled.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to turn around and took a few shaky steps toward the forest. It was getting ridiculous, the power Miley had over Lilly's body. She desperately wanted to run into the lake and see what it felt like, pressed against her own, but she forced herself to start gathering firewood instead. There were things to do and she didn't have time or reason to ogle over Miley's half-naked body.

Swinging the hatchet at the old rotting log, Lilly tried to clear the image from her mind. She struck the log over and over, sweat pouring down her face, but it was pointless. All she could see was Miley standing in the water, her body tight and responding to the coldness of the lake. No matter how many times she shook her head and tried to focus on chopping up the logs, the vision kept reappearing.

"Oh, God," Lilly mumbled as she finally gave up trying to cut firewood and sat on the log instead, face in her hands as she tried to compose herself. "Why does it have to be so painful?"

"Talkin' to yourself now, Lils?"

Lilly jumped in surprise, glancing up to see Miley standing over her, clothes freshly washed and slightly damp, clinging nicely to her body. Jeez, when did all her thoughts turn so dirty?

"Uh…" Lilly cleared her throat, looking anywhere but at Miley. "Just taking a break from chopping wood."

"Darlin', there ain't another person in this world as crazy as you." Miley laughed and shifted her weight, hands resting on her hips. "So you need some help, or what?"

"Yeah, if you want to gather up some of the branches around here and carry the logs down to the shelter. I can keep trying to chop up this tree." Lilly found it was easier to think if she kept her eyes far away from Miley's body, and she was sure Miley could tell she was avoiding eye contact but she didn't comment on that fact as she quietly began working.

They had both decided it was a good idea to always have enough wood on hand for at least three days, and after spending only one night with the fire as a friend in their shelter, they knew just how much wood that would take. A lot. They worked all through the morning, Lilly breaking down dead limbs or breaking and chopping them into smaller pieces and Miley bringing them back to camp and storing them neatly beneath the overhang.

Once during mid-morning they stopped to take a drink at the lake and Lilly took a moment to study her reflection. The cuts on her face, as well as Miley's, were gone. Her leg was also back to normal although she now had a small pattern of holes, roughly star-shaped, where the quills had nailed her. Miley's leg was slowly healing too, her skin knitting together in what was sure to be a grotesque scar. But their bodies were also changing as well.

Lilly had never been fat, always being an active skateboarder and surfer. In fact, Miley had voiced more than once how jealous she was of Lilly's body. But she had always had a small layer of fat over her body, with maybe a little extra weight at her sides just above her belt.

Now that was all gone. Her skin was tight against the muscles beneath, with her stomach caving in to the hunger and her cheeks hollow. Miley looked even worse, as though she'd dropped a good ten pounds, something she really couldn't afford.

The sun had also cooked them past burning so that Lilly was actually tanning for the first time in her life and Miley was now a deep golden brown. Lilly was slightly aware that she was picturing Miley with an _all-over_ tan, the vision from earlier in the morning surfacing once again. What are you doing? Just leave it alone.

But perhaps more than their changing bodies was their change in mind, or in the way they were becoming.

I am not the same, Lilly thought. She saw and heard everything differently. She wasn't sure when the change started within herself, but it was there. Now when a sound came, she wouldn't just hear it but would know the sound. She would swing and look at it – a breaking twig, a movement of air – and know the sound as if she somehow could move her mind through the wave of sound to the source.

And when she saw something – a bird moving around inside a bush or a ripple on the lake – she would truly see that thing, not just notice it as she used to just notice things back in Malibu. Now she would see all the parts of it, see the whole bird, and the feathers, and the color of the feathers, and the bush, and the shape and size of the leaves on the bush. She would see the way the light moved with the ripples on the water and see that the wind made the ripples, and which way the wind had to blow to make the ripples move in that certain way.

She noticed these changes in Miley too, the way she would react to their surroundings, as if she were a part of the forest now.

None of this used to be in Lilly, or Miley, and now it was a part of them, and their bodies and minds had made a connection with each other that Lilly didn't quite understand. When she heard a sound or her eyes caught something, her mind would take control of her body. Without thinking, she would move to face the noise or sight, as if her body was getting ready to deal with it. And Miley. She was even more aware of Miley if that was possible - of where she was, of what she was doing; her body just sensed her presence. They had been close before, had been able to have conversations without speaking a word, but now they were closer somehow. It was as if their brains were on the same wavelength and they could go hours without speaking, just silently working and cooperating together, knowing what had to be done and what the other was thinking.

But what Lilly hadn't noticed was that the entire time she had been thinking at the lake during their water break, she had been staring at Miley. They stood face-to-face now and Miley's gaze turned concerned.

"What?" Lilly asked nervously.

"Nothing." Miley didn't hesitate to brush a bit of dirt from Lilly's cheek and her tender touch made a lump rise in Lilly's throat. God, maybe she really was a lesbian. Because right now, Lilly could feel the pull of attraction between them as though it were a living, breathing thing. She wanted to wrap her arms around her, bury her face in Miley's hair and stay there. This time when she thought about it, it wasn't at all unsettling to her. She knew who she was and what she wanted.

But there were things to do, so she shook off her thoughts.

They went back to the wood, and when that was done Lilly decided to get a signal fire ready. She moved to the top of the rock ridge that comprised the bluff over their shelter and was pleased to find a large, flat rocky area.

More wood, she thought, moaning inwardly. But just as she turned to head back to camp, Miley appeared with an armful of firewood.

"One step ahead of ya."

Lilly smiled, and the two of them went back to the woods to get even more dead limbs, carrying them up on the rock until they had enough for a bonfire. Initially she had thought of making a signal fire every day but she now realized they couldn't – they would never be able to keep the wood supply going. So while they were working she decided to have the fire ready and if they heard an engine, or even thought they heard a plane engine, one of them could run up with a burning limb and set off the signal fire.

At the last trip to the top of the stone bluff with wood, Lilly stopped and sat on a point overlooking the lake. Miley sat by her side and they rested for a few moments, shoulders touching but each lost in their own thoughts. The lake lay before them, twenty or so feet below, and Lilly realized she had not seen it this way since they had come crashing down in the plane. Remembering the crash brought a moment of fear, terror seizing her breath for a short moment as the images and feelings flashed across her mind, but it passed and she was quickly caught up in the beauty of the scenery. They were both alive and Miley was here with her, experiencing the hardships as well as the beauty.

And it was so incredibly beautiful, almost surreal. From their height on the bluff they could not just see the lake but across part of the forest, a carpet of green, and it was full of life. Birds, insects – there was a constant hum – the song of mother nature. At the other end of the bottom of the L there was another large rock sticking out over the water and on top of the rock a snaggly pine had somehow found soil and nutrients and grown, bent and gnarled. Sitting on one limb was a blue bird with a crest and sharp beak, a kingfisher she thought, which left the branch while she watched and dove into the water. It emerged a split part of a second later. In its mouth was a small fish, wiggling silver in the sun. It took the fish to a limb, juggled it twice, and swallowed it whole.

Fish! There were fish in the lake, and if a bird could manage to catch one…

Startled, Lilly jerked back from her thoughts when she felt a cool finger slide down her forearm to her wrist. She turned to see Miley intently examining the skin she'd just touched. "Sorry," she said, glancing up and self-consciously withdrawing her finger. "I was just brushing it away."

Lilly's eyebrows lifted and she rested her hand over the skin Miley'd just touched. "It?"

"Spider."

"A spider was on me?" Lilly squeaked and shuddered, suddenly feeling as if things were crawling all over. Not that she should be surprised. She'd probably had spiders crawling all over her since they'd crashed in the woods.

"Yeah. Don't worry, I got it."

"Thanks." The skin on her arm still tingled, and she knew it had nothing to do with the spider that had apparently been crawling on her.

Miley nodded and turned to stare out at the lake once again. "It's so beautiful. The water is so blue."

The lake. Her thoughts were brought back to the fish. She jumped up and scrambled down the side of the bluff to the lake edge, Miley following her a minute later. Lilly stared down into the water. Somehow it had never occurred to her to look _inside_ the water – only at the surface. The sun was flashing back up into her eyes and she moved off to the side and took her shoes off before wading out into the water about fifteen feet. Then she turned and stood still, with the sun at her back, and studied the water again.

"Umm…Lil? Care to explain what you're doin'? Or have you completely lost your mind?"

"Fish! The lake has fish!" Lilly exclaimed as she stared down at the water. The lake was, she saw after a moment, literally packed with life. Small fish swam everywhere, some narrow and long, some round, most of them three or four inches long, some a bit larger and many smaller. There was a patch of mud off to the side, leading into deeper water, and she could see old clam shells there, so there must also be clams. As she watched, a crayfish left one of the empty clam shells and went to another looking for something to eat, digging around with its claws.

While she stood some of the small, roundish fish came quite close to her legs and she tensed, got ready, and made a wild stab at grabbing one of them. They exploded away in a hundred flicks of quick light, so fast that she had no hope of catching them that way.

Miley burst out laughing at her attempt and Lilly glared at her before turning her attention back to the lake. The small fish soon came back, seemed to be curious about her, and as she walked from the water she tried to think of a way to use that curiosity to catch them.

"You're not going to catch fish with your bare hands Lilly." Miley playfully chided.

"Well, what do you suggest? We don't have hooks or string, or a fishing pole."

"I don't know. Maybe a spear? You'd have to be fast enough."

"Hmm…a spear," Lilly thought out loud. She would have to find the right kind of wood, slim and straight. She had seen some willows up along the lake that might work. And she could use the hatchet to sharpen and shape it tonight while they were sitting by the fire.

And that thought brought up the fire, which she realized they needed to feed again. She looked up at the sun, saw that it was getting late in the afternoon, and when she thought of how late it was she thought that they ought to reward all their hard work with another egg. The egg made her think that some kind of dessert would be nice and she wondered if she should move up the lake and see if she could find some raspberries after they banked the fire and while she was looking for the right wood for a spear.

As if reading her mind, Miley spoke. "It's almost evenin'. We should look for more berries since we ate the last of 'em last night."

Lilly nodded and put her shoes back on. There were things to do. "You want to help me pick berries so you know where the patches I found are?"

Miley smiled and nodded. "Yeah, thanks Lil, I'd like that. I was beginnin' to feel a little useless."

"That's nonsense, Miley. You helped me gather wood and make the fire, and you made those baskets, which are awesome by the way." Miley blushed. "Let's bring them with us. We can bring back more berries that way."

"Okay." The look and smile on Miley's face was priceless. Lilly wanted to do or say anything to make her eyes shine that bright again. They almost sparkled.

"And on our way I'll look for some wood to make a spear out of. I think some of those willows down by the lake might have some strong and straight branches. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be dining on fish!"

Yes, they would stoke the fire, find more raspberries for dinner, and work on creating a spear so that tomorrow, they would eat something of substance. There were these things to do.

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**Questions, comments, or concerns?** This chapter was a lot of Gary Paulsen in the beginning. I had a hard time finding places to add Miley in and add dialogue in, so I just decided to go with the original chapter and make a few adjustments and additions. Sorry for it being short and crappy, and for not having as much Miley, which I know some of you mentioned you'd like to see. I probably could have read through it a few more times to make it a little better but decided to just post it since you've all waited long enough for an update!


	12. Chapter 12

**Rating:** T for now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** I have one final and two projects due tomorrow, so ya'll better be happy I'm posting the next chapter today! Thank you all for the lovely reviews and comments! If I could I'd respond to everyone and tell you how happy you make me, lol :) Now go read and review again!

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_**12**_

_Okay, so the spear idea didn't work._

Lilly stood perfectly still in the shallows of the cold lake, patiently waiting, as Miley sat on the shore and tore apart more birch bark into fine threads so that they would have extra fire starters if ever needed. Lilly waited, and waited, and waited. The small fish would swim closer, and she lunged time after time, but she was always too slow. Miley's laughter echoing from the shore constantly reminded her of that. She tried throwing the spear, jabbing the spear into the water, she basically tried everything except flailing about with the spear, and nothing worked. The fish were too fast. Once again, Miley was right. She would have to be fast to use the spear, and apparently she wasn't fast enough.

She had been so sure, so certain that the spear would work when Miley mentioned the idea yesterday afternoon. All night she had sat by the fire and listened as Miley told stories about growing up in Tennessee as she had carefully peeled the bark off the willow branches until she had a straight staff about six feet long and about an inch thick. She hung on the words of Miley's smooth, deep voice as she recounted Jackson's many antics and Mamaw Ruthie's sweet fall apple pies back in Crowley Corners as she had used the hatchet to carve the head of the spear, a thin piece off each time, until the end tapered down to a needle point. She had then carefully split the point up the middle for about eight to ten inches, jamming a small piece of wood between the two points to make a two-prong spear with the points about two inches apart. Then she had fallen asleep with her head in Miley's lap, extremely proud of her ingenuity and completely relaxed as Miley's voice washed over her and thoughts of lying in a big open field with Miley accompanied her into sleep.

And despite the crudeness of the spear she had slaved over last night, it seemed to have good balance when she had tested it out earlier this morning. It was just lacking in its effectiveness of catching fish. Or the fish were smarter than her. One or the other.

Lilly moved into the shallows of the lake, standing patiently until the fish came to her. Just as before, they swarmed around her legs. They seemed so plentiful and easy to catch, but no matter how many times she tried they were just too fast. First she tried throwing the spear at the fish. That method stood no chance, as the fish were frightened away as soon as Lilly brought her arm back in preparation to throw the spear. Next she tried lunging at them, with the tip of the spear just above the surface of the water and then thrusting it at the fish below. Again, no luck. Finally she actually put the spear in the water and waited until the fish were right in front of it, but still somehow the fish sensed the movement before she even moved the spear, and they flashed away.

"You're goin' to throw your arm out or stab yourself with how you're carryin' on with that spear," drawled Miley from her position at the shore of the lake.

"Hush. I don't need any comments from the peanut gallery. Do you want fish for dinner, or not?"

Miley just chuckled.

"Seriously. I slaved over this spear. I spent hours and hours on it. And now it doesn't work." Lilly complained, wanting to rip her hair out in frustration.

"Maybe you need somethin' to move the spear forward, faster than the fish. Like a bow."

"Yes…" Lilly drew out. "A bow and arrow." That's what she needed to make.

"Now come on Pocahontas, let's go eat some breakfast. You were in such a hurry to use your spear this morning, you forgot food."

The mention of food caught Lilly's attention and she quickly moved out of the water and put her shoes on, following Miley to the shelter where she had begun preparing a couple of turtle eggs next to the fire.

"Nice nickname. Does that make you my John Smith?" Lilly teased as she sat next to Miley by the fire.

"That depends. Are we talkin' Disney version or history version?"

"I don't know. Which one do you want to be?" Lilly smiled, enjoying their small flirting as Miley cooked breakfast.

"Well, history version is a little boring and probably untrue and Disney version is much more interesting and handsome, so I choose that John Smith," Miley contemplated, slowly turning the turtle eggs in the sand next to the fire.

"Wow, Miles. I'm speechless. You want to be with me?"

"Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit! The blonde chatterbox is speechless!"

Lilly guffawed. "You did not just say that," she gasped, tears running down her face as she continued laughing.

Miley scowled. "Glad I amuse you. Now if you're done laughin' at my expense, your breakfast is ready."

Lilly continued chuckling as she ate the turtle egg and berries Miley handed her, unable to keep a straight face every time Miley glared in her direction.

After a breakfast of berries and turtle egg, Lilly banked the fire with a couple large pieces of wood and set off up the lake to find wood to make a bow as Miley stayed behind to continue work on the fire starters and gathering wood for their continuously hungry and consuming fire. Lilly stopped at the berry patch for a snack and noticed they were starting to become overripe. They would be gone soon and she made a mental note to tell Miley to pick as many as possible after she found wood for her bow. She picked a few and ate them. They were full and sweet and when she picked one, two or more would fall off the limbs to the grass below and soon her hands and cheeks were covered with red berry juice and she was full.

The thought surprised her. Being full. She hadn't thought she'd experience the feeling ever again, had known only hunger here. But one turtle egg and a handful of berries and she felt full. She glanced down at her stomach and saw that it was still caved in, did not bulge out as it would have with a couple hotdogs and a smoothie at Rico's. Her stomach must have shrunk. And she noticed a hunger still there, but it wasn't screaming at her like before. This was a hunger that she began to know would always be there – a hunger that made her look for things, see things, hunt things. A hunger that would hopefully keep both her and Miley alive as she strove to become something she never thought she would be – a hunter.

She swung her eyes across the berry patch, making sure there wasn't a bear at her back, and then moved down to the lake. She held the spear in her hand out in front of her, moving the brush away from her face as she walked, and when she came to the water edge she turned left. She didn't know what she should be looking for, not knowing the type of wood that would make a good bow. But she figured that it would need to be strong and slightly flexible, something with a snap to it, and hoped that she might find something suitable along the lake, near the water.

She saw a young birch tree, found that it was springy, but it didn't snap back with enough force. Neither did the willows. She needed something else. Something that wasn't too bendy but also wouldn't snap on her when she went to shoot an arrow.

Lilly turned to head further up the lake, and just as she started to step over a log, an explosion under her foot terrified her.

"What the - !" She screamed out as something like a feathered bomb blew up and away in a flurry of leaves and she fell to the ground, bruising her tailbone in the process.

It had been a bird, about the size of a small Cornish game hen only with shorter stubby wings and a smaller tail. She got up and brushed herself off. The bird had been brownish grey and speckled, and apparently not all that smart as Lilly had almost completely stepped on it before it flew away. Half a second more and she would have stepped on it.

And caught it. And eaten it. She and Miley would have been feasting on bird.

Maybe, she thought, she could spear one. It would probably taste like chicken, just like the chicken Robbie Ray would bake in the Stewart's oven with some garlic and salt until it turned golden brown and crackled and bubbled in its own juices…

Lilly shook her head to drive the picture out of her mind as she felt her salivary glands begin to act up. Now was not the time to start dreaming of food again. It would only make her hungry for something she could not have, and she had a bow to make. A bow that would hopefully be bringing them food in the near future. She moved down to the shore, where there was a tree with straight branches. When she pulled on one and let it go, it had a nice vicious snap to it and she knew she had found her wood. She chose a limb that looked to be the right size and width and began chopping where the branch joined the tree, carefully, as the wood was hard and she didn't want it to split.

She was concentrating so hard at taking small hits to the limb that at first she didn't hear it. A small persistent whine, like the bugs that tried to drink her dry every day, only more steady. And this had an edge of a roar to it, something like an engine might make. The sound was in her ears as she chopped away, thinking of her bow and how she would shape it and the food she would catch with it, and it didn't register in her brain until she had cut the limb nearly off the tree.

Plane! The whining noise was the sound from the motor of a plane, far off but it seemed to be getting louder, coming for them. They were going to be saved!

Lilly threw the limb and spear down to the ground and ran for their camp, the hatchet still firmly in her hand.

"Miley!!! Plane!!! Fire!!!" She screamed as loud as her lungs would allow as she moved as quickly as her legs would take her. They needed to get on the bluff and signal to the plane with the fire and smoke. She put all of her life into her legs, jumping over logs and moving through the brush like a ghost, like the Indian ghost of Pocahontas, running and swiveling and knowing the forest as she ran. Her lungs were heaving and the sound of the engine was louder, closer now. It was coming in their direction!

"Miley! Start the signal fire!" She yelled again as she got closer to their camp. The plane might not be coming right at them, but it was definitely coming closer and she could see it all in her mind now, the way everything would be when they were rescued. They would get the fire going nice and strong and the plane would see the smoke and circle back around the lake a few times, coming closer to the tree tops and the water each time, looking for them. It would be a float plane with two large pontoons, and it would land on the water gracefully before the pilot stepped out, amazed that they were both still alive.

She saw all of this as she ran for Miley and the camp, hoping she had been able to start the fire in time. They would be going home tonight! This very night they would sit with her mother, and father, and Oliver, and Robbie Ray and Jackson Stewart, eating a huge meal of steak and mashed potatoes and gravy, and would tell them all about the plane and their adventures. She could see it all now. It was so close.

She got to the camp finding Miley absent and saw her up on the ridge. The fire was blazing next to her, growing in size. Lilly ran around the edge of the ridge and scrambled up like an animal on four legs, stopping and panting to catch her breath next to Miley. She mimicked Miley's pose and stared up at the sky, shielding the sun from her eyes as she tried to see the plane in the bright blue sky.

"It's goin' away." Miley whispered, as if afraid to say the words. But they were true. The sound was becoming fainter, the plane was nowhere in sight.

Lilly dropped to her knees, frantically adding more grass and leaves to create smoke, and adding more wood until the signal was a raging bonfire. But it didn't matter. The sound was long gone now.

"Look back," Lilly cried as all the pictures that had run through her mind on her run over here began to fade like the sound. They faded away like lost dreams, like lost hope. "Come on! Turn around! See our fire, see the smoke!" She was screaming now, willing the plane and pilot to hear her.

But the plane kept moving away and soon she couldn't hear it even in her imagination, only the sounds of Miley's quiet crying and the birds happily chirping as if nothing had just happened. The plane was gone.

"Lilly?" The voice startled her out of her thoughts.

"Yeah?" Lilly replied, trying to hide her worry. Something in Miley's face chilled her to the bone.

"No one's comin' back for us, are they?"

Lilly tried to remember how to breathe. Miley was the chipper, optimistic one. If _she_ started to doubt things…Lilly knew she couldn't hold it together. Not on her own.

"Of course they are," she said a little gruffly. "They just haven't found us yet."

"It's been over a week now."

"I know."

"I think that plane was our only hope. And they didn't see us."

Lilly exhaled deeply, not knowing what to say. Miley was right. "That just means they're still looking for us."

"That's not what that means, Lilly." Miley's eyes were filled with tears. "They're not gonna search forever. They stop lookin' after a while. They declare us dead." Her voice broke on the last word.

"C'mon, Miles." Lilly turned to face her. She pet the soft auburn brown hair away, brushing it away from Miley's face. "It's going to be okay."

"But -"

"It is." Lilly said, hoping her voice was more soothing than she felt.

Miley's hands shaped into fists. "No one is gonna rescue us!"

Lilly suddenly felt like someone had punched her straight in the chest, knocking the air from her lungs. The look on her face must have been the last straw, because Miley stopped trying to quietly hold back her tears and just let them fall as loud, heart-wrenching sobs took over her body. She suddenly knew then with great clarity that they would not get out of this place. Not now, not ever.

That had been a search plane. It had come as far off to the side of the flight plan as they thought they would have to come. But it had not been far enough, and the plane had turned back to continue searching in the other direction. In the wrong direction. They did not see the fire, they did not see the smoke, they did not hear Miley's cries or Lilly's screams or her mind yelling out for them to turn back.

They would not be returning, as Miley said. She and Miley would never be leaving this place now. They would never get out of here.

Lilly sunk to the hard ground below her next to Miley and stared out at the lake, the bonfire cooking the side of her face and her body as the sun blazed down on her, watching as the clouds of ash and smoke from the signal fire blew up and marred the clear blue sky. All for nothing. She felt the tears start and was unable to stop them as they mercilessly fell down her cheeks, cutting through the smoke and ash on her face and silently falling onto the cold hard stone below.

Gone. It was all gone. Everything. No bows, or spears, or fish, or birds, or turtle eggs or berries…it was all just a silly game they had been playing. They could play for a couple of days, but not forever. Not through the winter, not until they saw their next birthdays. They could not make it if someone didn't come for them someday. Someday soon.

She could not play the game without hope, without a dream of going home, without a reason to survive just one more day. But the plane had taken all that away from her and there was nothing left now. The plane was gone, her family was gone, all of it was gone. They would not come. It was just her and Miley, and nothing to do but wait for a rescue that wouldn't come and a death that surely would.

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**Questions, comments, or concerns?** Man, I almost felt like crying myself when I read over this. How about you guys?


	13. Chapter 13

**Rating:** Still just T.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** This chapter is totally Lilly-centric, so sorry for those of you who asked for more Miley. But it needs to be this way in order to jump ahead in time.

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_**13**_

_Lilly stood at the end of the lake_, watching the shimmering surface intensely until she felt like one with the water – seeing it, smelling it, listening to it. A fish moved and her eyes moved sideways in her head to see the ripples, but she did not move any other part of her body. She kept her bow steady at her side, not even reaching into her belt pouch for an arrow. No, that fish wasn't a food fish. She would not waste her energy on it.

The food fish stayed in the shallows of the lake, and made quicker movements – food movements, not like the fish that had just swam by. This one was a large fish, one that stayed deep in the water and could not be caught. But none of this mattered today. Because this morning, Lilly was not looking to catch fish. Fish was the light meat and both she and Miley were sick of eating them.

Instead, she was looking for one of those stupid birds that she had almost stepped on that day – the day that had almost destroyed her. There was a flock of them that lived near the end of the long part of the lake and she was going to go over there and get them dinner. They would be dining on bird soon, and Lilly knew this would make Miley very happy, which was half her reason for doing anything these days. But something had stopped her. Something she did not yet understand but instinctively knew, and she had stopped her movements and stood, breathing gently through her mouth to keep silent as she let her senses do their work.

This had happened before. Some sort of warning had come to her from her surroundings and she had stopped. Once it had been the bear again. She had been picking the last of the salmonberries with Miley, their baskets almost overflowing with the overly ripe fruit as they headed back to camp joking and laughing in the setting sun, and something like a premonition had stopped her movements. Miley had sensed it too and when Lilly had finally looked to where her ears said to look there was a female bear with her cubs.

Had they taken only a few more steps, she and Miley would have come between the mother and her bear cubs, and Lilly knew that was a _very_ bad place to be. As it was, the mother had stood and faced them and made a low threatening sound to warn them as Miley grabbed her hand and squeezed, both of them understanding the danger and the need to be constantly alert in their new home. And so Lilly paid attention to the feeling she felt now, standing immobile and patiently waiting, knowing that something would come.

Her senses were on high alert, smelling, listening, feeling…and then a sound, and she looked up from the lake and saw it. A wolf. It was halfway up the hill from her, standing with its head and shoulders sticking out into a small opening, looking down at Lilly with wide yellow eerie eyes. She had never seen a wolf before, having been a city girl all her life, and this was a first experience out here in the forest. The sheer size of the animal took her by surprise. It wasn't as big as a bear, but it somehow seemed just as large. The wolf stood on the hillside and claimed all that was below him as his own, including Lilly.

Lilly troublingly looked around her and for a moment was terrified, because the wolf was so…right. He knew Lilly, owned Lilly, yet chose not to do anything to her. Her fear slowly abated as she stood tall and looked back at the wolf, and Lilly knew the wolf for what it was – just another part of the woods, of everything, of their life here now. She relaxed her tight grip on the spear she held in her hand, dropping the bow in her other hand that had slowly started to rise. She regarded and understood the wolf now, as it understood her, and she nodded to it, smiling.

The wolf stood quietly watching her for some time before turning, walking effortlessly up the hill where it was joined by three other wolves just outside of the brush, all equally massive and gray and beautiful. They looked down at her as they trotted by and into the depths of the woods, Lilly nodding to each as they passed.

She was not the same now, just as Miley was not the same. The Lilly that had stood and watched the wolves move away was a completely changed person from the girl who cried herself to sleep in Miley's arms just days after the plane crash. Time had changed them both. They measured its passing, but neither seemed to care all that much. It passed by them, leaving them different.

In measured time, marked in charcoal on the side of their shelter, it had been forty-nine days since the plane had crashed down and left them here. Forty-two days, Lilly thought, since their previous selves had died and they had been born as the new Lilly and Miley.

When the plane had passed them by, destroying all hope of being rescued, it had gutted them both, leaving them with nothing. No hope, and no desire to continue. At least Lilly'd had no hope. The rest of that first day her mood had continued to plummet, well past dark, and Miley seemed to be feeling the same way as she sat and stared out at the lake, no words spoken between them. They had let the fire go out that night, had both forgotten to eat anything, and Lilly had let her brain take her down to the pits of despair, where she wanted to be done with it all.

To where she wanted to die. The depression settled over her, sinking in deeper and still deeper until she had finally left Miley at the lake and headed up the ridge with the hatchet. She sat staring at it in the moonlight, a madness overtaking her brain as she thought of cutting herself, wanting everything to end.

But she couldn't do it, the rational part of her brain kicking in at the last minute. Hold it together, Lilly. Just one more day, one more hour. One more minute, even. Just fake that you're not falling apart. You're not alone here, and Miley needs you. No, she couldn't just leave Miley like that.

Miley had followed her up the ridge shortly after, taking the hatchet from her hands and gazing at her desperately. "Please don't give up now. Just don't. If you fall apart and end this, I'm gonna follow you Lilly."

Lilly choked on her tears. They had tried and tried, but where had it gotten them? Nowhere. No one was coming for them and they wouldn't make it out here, and she just couldn't do it anymore. "But -"

"Don't!" Miley had said so fiercely that Lilly's mouth snapped shut immediately. "I won't give up on you and you won't give up on me. Remember, you promised me!"

Bewildered, Lilly squeezed her eyes shut, searching her foggy brain for the memory and trying to remember. The crash seemed like ages ago. "I promised?"

Miley's chest heaved and Lilly knew she was about to lose it. "Lilly, you stared me right in the eye and you promised," her voice had wavered as tears started spilling down her cheeks.

Lilly couldn't stand to see Miley cry, and with how strongly Miley was insisting, she knew she must have made the promise. And she always kept her promises.

She looked at Miley, who was visibly trying to control her frustration. Her face was flushed, her voice raspy, and her dark blue eyes were throwing off more sparks than the hatchet. Sexy as hell, Lilly's disobedient mind whispered. With a deep breath, she spoke. "Okay."

They had sat up on the ridge all night, collapsing against the cold hard rock and slept; only Lilly didn't really sleep. And in the morning, they were still there. The sun came up and when she opened her eyes she saw Miley curled up in a ball, holding the hatchet tightly in her grasp as if afraid Lilly would attempt to cut herself again. The sight sickened her as she hated what she had almost done to herself. But that was the old Lilly and she was weak. Two things had come to her mind that morning – two real truths.

One, she was not the same and she suspected Miley felt it too. The plane passing by had changed them, the disappointment cutting her and Miley down and making them new. She would never be the same person again. That was the first new truth she realized. The other was that she would not let them die, she would protect Miley and stay with her, and death would not come in again.

Lilly was reborn.

Of course, they had made a lot of mistakes. Lilly smiled now as she walked along the lake shore after the wolves had passed by, thinking of all the mistakes she and Miley had made as they learned and found new ways of being their new selves and surviving here in their new home.

They had made a new fire, which they now kept going using partially rotten wood that Miley had discovered would smolder for hours and still come back with fire at the addition of new wood. That had been the first thing they had learned to do right. But Lilly's first attempt at a bow was a disaster that almost left her blind and Miley furious.

She had spent an entire night shaping the slim tree limbs carefully until she had a beautiful looking bow. Then she had spent two days making arrows as Miley went about restocking their firewood and taking care of food. Lilly had used willow again for the arrow shafts, stripping off the bark and fire-hardening the points. A few she split to make forked tips, as she had done with the spear. And since she had no feathers to add to the end, she left them bare. But she had no string as well and this threw her for a bit until Miley had unlaced her shoes, cutting one shoe string in half to re-lace both shoes with and handing over the other lace.

"For the bowstring," she had said quietly.

Lilly grinned. "I don't know what I'd do without you. Probably starve or kill myself doing something extremely stupid."

"You are such a drama queen. But you're probably right." Miley chuckled.

"Seriously though. You're the one with all the ideas. How come you're so smart and I'm not?"

"When you grow up in Tennessee, you learn to be useful. But I'm just full of ideas. I have no idea how to go about doing them. That's where you come in."

"We make a good team, huh?"

"Yes we do, Lilly Truscott."

Lilly smiled as she began attaching the string to her bow. They really did make a good team and Lilly was struck not for the first time with just how grateful she was that Miley was here with her. Her smile and laugh brightened Lilly's day, her touch soothed her, her warmth made her feel alive, and her presence made Lilly feel more a part of something than she ever had before. And she knew that she would do anything for Miley, including making a bow out of tree limbs and shoe laces.

The bow-making seemed to be going well too, that is, until she tried it out. She put an arrow to the string, pulling it back against her cheek, intently aiming it at a small dirt mound…and at that instant the bow had exploded, sending splinters of wood into her hands and face, missing her eyes by a mere inch. To say Miley had been angry with her would be an understatement. After cleaning her face of any remaining debris and making sure she was alright, Miley had stood and yelled at her for a considerable amount of time, calling her stupid and reckless before breaking down into tears. Lilly had been a little frightened by the outburst but had begun to expect and like Miley's protectiveness of her. It was oddly comforting and reassuring, knowing someone cared so much for her. She knew she would be beside herself if anything happened to Miley out here, which is why she understood Miley's need to keep her safe, especially from her own poorly constructed hunting devices.

And that was how she learned to use slender limbs and more fluid, gentle pulls with the bow. However, this didn't mean she caught any fish. She would sit in the water, virtually surrounded by the aquatic vertebrates she desperately wanted to call dinner, pulling the bow back with the arrow just above the water and releasing it when the fish was no more than an inch away. Only to miss. Over and over again. It was extremely infuriating as well as humiliating. She wanted to prove to Miley she could provide food for them.

But she was unable to catch even a simple fish. It seemed like the arrow was going right through the fish every time she tried, but the fish never got hurt, the arrow never touched them. Finally, after hours of trying again and again, she remembered a concept she had learned in her physics class that she barely paid attention in. Water refracted light, bending objects and making them appear in a different position than they actually were. Of course. That meant the fish were not where they appeared to be. So she had to aim differently, just under the fish, if she wanted to catch one.

Lilly would never forget her first catch. Never. It had been a round-shaped fish with golden scales that glittered like the sun. The unfortunate fish had stopped right in front of her arrow and she aimed it just beneath the bottom of its belly, releasing the arrow in one fluid, victorious movement. There had been a bright flurry of gold splashing about in the water as the arrow speared the fish and Lilly realized for the first time that she had caught food.

She grabbed the arrow and raised it above the water, holding the wiggling fish against the bright blue of the sky as laughter bubbled from her lips. She had finally caught food! She had found a way to live with a bow and arrow that she had fashioned with her own hands.

The feeling of pride had been overwhelming as she stood tall and walked from the water, still holding the fish and arrow in the air as she exulted in her success. Miley heard her approach from where she was stacking firewood underneath the ledge, dropping the log in her hands as she ran at Lilly, nearly knocking her over into the lake as she enveloped her in a giant, bone-crushing hug that seemed to never end. Her happiness had been irresistible and the two of them stood and laughed in delight as they stared at the fish on the end of Lilly's arrow.

"Lilly, you're amazing!" Miley had beamed, her bright blue eyes flashing with glee and pride and something else Lilly didn't yet have a word for but was quickly becoming familiar with. It bordered on devotion. Unexpectedly, Miley leaned over and kissed her squarely on the lips. It was a quick kiss, over before Lilly was fully aware it was happening. A blush stole across her face as warmth flooded her body and a goofy grin formed on her lips.

"Umm…t-thanks," she had stuttered, unable to think past the tingling in her lips as she remembered the soft feel of Miley's lips against hers. Oh, how she wanted to repeat it.

"Here. You go down to the lake shore and cut a green willow to use as a cooking fork and I'll prepare the fish," Miley ordered as she took the arrow from Lilly's hand and shoved her toward the water. Lilly stumbled down to the water in a daze. Today was probably the happiest day of her life. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, she had caught a fish, and Miley had just kissed her. It didn't matter that she had probably done it out of sheer happiness and not for the reasons Lilly wished she had kissed her. She could still die a happy woman today.

Back at the fire, Lilly held the fish over the flames using the willow fork until the skin was crackling and peeling away, signaling that the meat inside was flaky and tender and ready for eating. This they carefully picked off with their fingers, tasting every piece and giggling like little school girls. Lilly would mash the small bites of fish with her tongue, sucking the juice out of the hot steaming pieces before licking her fingers and eating more, grinning like a fool the entire time.

And like the turtle eggs, she couldn't get enough. She could never get enough. But now she knew how to get more, and had spent the rest of the day going down to the lake, shooting a fish, taking it back to the fire where Miley cooked them, and then they would eat it before she repeated the process. They continued on that way until it was dark.

She had taken the scraps back to the water with the thought they might work for bait, and sure enough the other fish came by the hundreds to clean them up. Now she could take her pick of the fish, just like a store, she had thought. Later, she could not remember how many fish she and Miley ate that day, but it must have been close to twenty.

That day had been their first feast day, and they had celebrated being alive and having a new way of getting food. By the end of the day, when it became dark and she lay with her head in Miley's lap next to the fire, her stomach full of fish and a few berries for dessert, she could feel new hope building in her. Not hope that they would ever be rescued – that was completely gone.

But hope in their knowledge and the things they were both becoming to know and be skilled at. Hope in the fact that they could continue to learn and survive and take care of themselves and each other.

Closing her eyes as Miley brushed her fingers through her hair, the fire cackling and dancing next to them, Lilly sighed in satisfaction and anticipation for the future. Yes, she was full of hope.

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**Questions, comments, or concerns?** I added as much Miley as I could, so be happy about that. You should be getting more in the coming chapters. I know some of you are getting antsy for real Liley action – it'll happen, don't worry. Lilly has definitely been feeling something for Miley from chapter one and I tried to make it show that the feelings were mutual. Once they aren't so focused on the surviving aspect of their lives they won't be as preoccupied or scared to tell each other how they feel. So you just need to keep reading :)


	14. Chapter 14

**Rating:** Most likely T.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** Update! I was afraid I wouldn't get this posted today because I've had to deal with plumbers and landlords dropping in all day, as they finally decided to get around to fixing the leak in my bathroom ceiling! And you all are just too nice. I seriously love you guys :) We're getting to the good stuff, I promise…and this chapter has a little something for ya! **Satan's Camaro**, your review brightened _my_ day, so this one's for you!

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_**14**_

_There were a lot of mistakes to be made_. Sometimes small, at first trivial, mistakes could turn into disasters, snowballing until you were suddenly looking at death. Small mistakes could lead to unexpected pleasures as well.

Back in Malibu, Lilly had made plenty of mistakes in her life, but there was always some way to fix them. If she fell on her skateboard at the skate park and sprained her wrist, she could rest and let it heal. If she forgot to study for a test, she could study harder for the next one and raise her grade. If she forgot something at the store, she could find something else to eat.

Now, it was completely different and completely serious. If they injured themselves, they might not heal. If Lilly missed while fishing, the fish might swim away and they would go hungry. If one of them got sick, really sick…they wouldn't make it, either one of them.

And this one mistake had made her learn the most important thing, the most vital knowledge that drives all creatures – food is everything. Plain and simple. All living things here, from the insects to the fish to the bears, they were always looking for food. It was the single, great driving influence of nature: all must eat. Food.

But the way Lilly learned this almost killed her, in more ways than one. And it was an important day for something other than a reminder of their failures and everything they still had yet to learn. It also happened to be Lilly's birthday. Seventeen. And she prayed it wouldn't be her last.

It was the second night after she had learned to catch fish. Lilly lay sound asleep in the shelter, curled up against Miley's side as the fire smoldered, when something awakened her in the early morning light. Later she thought it might have been the smell, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Near their fire, completely unafraid of their 'guard' as Lilly had nicknamed the coals and dancing flames, and completely unafraid of them, was a skunk. And it was digging right where Lilly had buried the remaining turtle eggs. In the faint light of the dawning day she could see the bushy tail, the white stripes down its back. It reminded her of Pepe le Pew from the old Looney Tunes cartoons she would watch on Saturday mornings as a kid, and she nearly smiled at it. She didn't know how it had found their eggs, probably by some powerful sense of smell, detecting a small piece of shell perhaps. But it looked cute, its little head down with its long tail sticking straight up, kicking the sand away.

Suddenly Lilly realized that the skunk was after their food and fear replaced the smile forming on her lips. Those were their eggs! They were going to lose their food! She quickly grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at the skunk.

"Hey! Get out of here…"

She was about to say more, some silly words that the animal couldn't understand, but in a split second the skunk had curved its tail up and over, spraying both Lilly and Miley who was laying next to her.

In the tiny confines of the shelter, the effect was devastating. Miley immediately woke up and began choking on the thick sulfurous rotten odor that was filling their home with a heavy stench. It was corrosive, searing their eyes and lungs and she couldn't breathe let alone see anything.

Lilly screamed and Miley began frantically shoving her toward the door of the shelter, trying to get out of the small space. She stumbled sideways in her attempt to run out, taking the entire wall off the shelter in the process, but she didn't care. All she cared about right now was clawing her way out of there to fresh air. When she managed to blindly stagger her way out into the early daylight she was almost run over by a screaming Miley who pushed at her to move as they ran down to the lake. Lilly didn't even think twice as she followed Miley right out into the water, fully dressed, slamming her body into the lake and scrubbing her face, trying to clear her eyes and make the breathing easier.

All those funny cartoons that laughed and joked about the smell of skunks, but there was nothing funny about it. When the spray hit her she had thought she was about to die, if not death then she would be permanently blinded from the acrid spray. As it was, the pain in her eyes lasted the rest of the day, bothered her after that for almost a week. The smell was still faintly in the shelter, in their clothes even now, almost a month and a half later.

And to think she had almost smiled at the skunks cuteness. Mistakes. But not everything about that day had been horrible.

"Sweet filthy-flippin' niblets!" Miley had coughed next to her as she splashed water on her face. "I've never smelled anything so horrible!"

Lilly tried to take a breath before speaking, but the smell was still so strong she ended up gagging. "Oh God, I think I might be sick."

Miley stepped up to her, brushing the wet hair plastered to her face away from her eyes. "We should probably get out of these clothes, try and wash everythin' up real good to get as much skunk out as we can."

Lilly felt her face heat at Miley's touch and suggestion of stripping off their clothes. "I think you just want to see me naked." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she was struck not only by how vain that sounded, but how ridiculous. Who in their right mind would want to see her naked?

"Duh…" Miley's laughing eyes met hers.

The blush spread even further. God, how could Miley make her forget about everything and make her feel good with one stupid word and a smile? But deep down inside, Lilly knew exactly how. She was in love with Miley. It was ridiculous and dangerous, yet she was doing it anyway. At this point, she didn't know how _not_ to love her. It was impossible.

"Umm…" Lilly croaked as Miley began tugging her worn t-shirt over her head, right in front of her without turning away. It wasn't that they had never seen each other half-naked, they did live on the beach in Malibu, California where a bikini was a clothing staple, after all. But it felt different somehow, and Lilly's cheeks heated as she tried to avert her eyes from Miley standing in front of her in just her bra. Hot. Hot. Hot. Lilly bit her lower lip.

"Lilly?"

"Hmm?" She muttered, completely distracted now. She couldn't remember the skunk, her own name even, at this point.

"Are you just going to stare or are you going to take a bath with me?"

Lilly's head snapped back up to Miley's face. "Oh, yeah."

A sexy grin began tugging at Miley's mouth as she removed the rest of her clothes and began scrubbing at them in the water. "Take your time."

Nodding, Lilly turned slightly and rubbed at her eyes again, beginning to take off her own clothes. She tried not to look at all the nakedness that was next to her, but she couldn't help it. All lean muscle and curves in just the right places. Both fit and feminine, if not a little skinny, Miley was simply gorgeous. If Lilly was going to be attracted to anyone, she knew it could only be Miley.

"Lilly?"

Lilly's hands froze as a stab of guilt hit her. It was so wrong to be enjoying this, especially under the circumstances, but it felt so right it was almost scary. "Yeah?"

"You don't have to be embarrassed." Miley's voice was soft, but passionate. "There's no time for modesty. And to be honest, I don't want to be. We might as well get used to each other."

Lilly felt her breathing pick up speed and she shyly smiled as she nodded at Miley. She was right. What mattered right now was getting clean and getting the skunk smell off of them, and they might as well get used to each other's bodies as it most likely wouldn't be the last time they would see each other naked. Who knew what would happen in the future. Plus, Lilly hoped that with practice, she wouldn't want to jump Miley next time as much as she wanted to right now.

Because right now, she was having a hard time controlling herself. Miley stood almost chest deep in the cold lake, the water hitting her just below the nipple line, and either she was cold or something else Lilly tried not to think about. But she couldn't help but mentally note that Miley appeared to be on the small end of a B-cup, her nipples a very appealing rose color. How could God be so kind and yet so cruel all at the same time?

Miley plugged her nose and submerged herself in the water, coming up to brush her wet hair out of her eyes. "Oh, cheese in biscuits, that water is cold!"

Lilly smirked and decided to follow Miley's actions, hoping it would help control the blush that by now was probably covering every inch of her pale scrawny body. She then began scrubbing at her hair, trying to get the smell as well as the dirt that had built up out of it, which was proving to be a little difficult due to the tangled mess her hair had become.

"You want help?" Miley asked.

Lilly smiled as her heart tripped even faster. Being around Miley was a good substitute for aerobics, with how often her heart went into overdrive. "I'd love it. Thanks."

Miley made a spinning motion with her index finger. "Turn please."

Lilly did and Miley proceeded to wash her hair, gently untangling the knots and working her fingers from Lilly's scalp to the ends of each strand, even taking time to massage her scalp as she chatted aimlessly about skunks and Tennessee.

"Okay, I think that's about as good as we're gonna get today. You're hair even looks several shades lighter now. I'd almost forgotten how blonde you were!"

"Marry me," Lilly exclaimed once she'd dipped her hair one last time into the cold lake water. She had never felt so relaxed or devoted to one person in her entire life.

Miley nodded indulgently, her eyes twinkling. "I'll keep your offer in mind. Only if you return the favor."

Lilly actually started to salivate. "Deal."

They took turns helping each other scrub themselves down, face to toe, once Lilly had washed Miley's long silky hair. The clothes were a bit harder to deal with, but Lilly figured if those women from _Little House on the Prairie_ could do it, so could they. They spread each garment across the rock face to dry after putting on their now clean but damp underwear and then started up a small fire outside the shelter to keep warm and dry quicker by. There was nothing to do but wait for their clothes to dry and the sun to rise, and Lilly reveled in the ability to just sit there with Miley as they watched the brilliant sun rise over the lake.

She'd had her share of wonderful moments in her life, ones that she wanted to sink into and never leave, ones that made her believe in perfection and consider all the natural beauty on this earth. And it seemed crazy, especially because they were stranded in the Canadian wilderness and had just been 'attacked' by a skunk, but this was one of those moments for Lilly. Every ounce of pain she'd experienced out here paled in comparison to the sweet simple joy she was experiencing, sitting huddled half-naked next to Miley by the fire, realizing they were still alive despite all the mistakes they had made.

Miley leaned to the side and rested her head against Lilly, mingling their damp hair. She could feel her chuckle tiredly.

"What?"

"Happy birthday."

"You remembered?"

"Of course. It seems kind of pointless, but I wanted to celebrate. I made you something."

Lilly watched as Miley stood and walked to the forest edge, picking up something at the base of a tree. When she returned, she handed over a bracelet she had woven with some kind of leaves.

"You made this for me?" Lilly felt her eyes tear up as her emotions took over.

"No, I bought it at the mall yesterday," Miley rejoined, sticking her tongue out as she slid the bracelet onto Lilly's wrist.

Lilly's stomach did a somersault and her heart beat painfully hard against her chest as she realized something to the very core of her being. Her perfect moment wasn't because of the brilliant colors of the sun rise, or being clean for the first time in ages, or being glad that she was alive. It was Miley – her easy laugh and ability to find the humor in the situation. It was her toothy grin and those damned, amazingly blue eyes that almost always made Lilly lose her train of thought if she looked into them for more than a second.

It was how they fit together, worked together. It was them. It was her deep, undying love for her best friend.

Everything seemed so amazingly clear in that second that Lilly closed her eyes so she wouldn't see it, and waited for the moment to slip away, for everything to be normal again and she wouldn't be falling even more head over heels in love with Miley.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"I-I…" Deep breath, Lilly. "I love it Miles. It means a lot to me."

"You're welcome." Miley smiled and leaned her head back against Lilly's as they waited for the rest of the sun to come up and finish drying their clothes. Once again, Lilly couldn't help but think of the song that seemed to be haunting her since the day she realized her feelings for Miley. The lyrics repeated in her head as the sun slowly rose over their destroyed camp.

_Feelings...why? Oh my.  
__Human needs. Heartbeats._

_I can see it, by the way you smile.  
__I'm smiling too. I see myself in you._

_I am with it! Ooh man I am wired!  
Ooh my lord! Ooh my lord- yeah...now I really know why!_

_Oh! This feeling it is wonderful! Don't you ever turn it off!  
Oh! This feeling it is wonderful! Don't you ever turn it off!_

So that day they had learned one of the most valuable lessons – food had to be protected. While they were in the lake 'bathing' to rid themselves of the skunk smell, the perpetrator went ahead and dug up the rest of the turtle eggs and ate every last one. The skunk had even licked all the shells clean and couldn't have cared less that it had caused them pain, ruined their shelter, and created a bad start to Lilly's birthday. The skunk had found food, took it, and Lilly and Miley were paying for the lesson.

They had to protect their food from now on and have a solid shelter. Not just a home to keep the wind and rain out, but one that would protect them, keep them safe. After their clothes had dried that day, Lilly set out to make them a better place to live.

The original shelter had been a good idea, and the placement of it was right, but they hadn't done enough to it. Lilly had been lazy with the basic construction, but now she knew the second most important thing about surviving in the wilderness. Food was top of the list for things that drove nature, but the work for obtaining that food went on and on. It was a never ending battle, and nothing about surviving out here was easy, or lazy. She had tried to take a shortcut and they had paid dearly with the turtle eggs – which she had come to like more than the chicken eggs she used to buy from the store. They were fuller somehow, with more depth to them, and the joy of eating their smoky flavor with Miley every morning was something she held near to her heart. It was special.

So Lilly set about improving the shelter by tearing down the old structure. The wall had been mostly removed by their stampede to the lake in the early morning hours, which was good because it had allowed the space to air out and the smell of skunk was now only a hazy reminder of their mistake. She went up the hill and drug down some heavier dead pine logs, fastening them across the opening of the overhang, wedging them at the top and burying the bottoms deep in the sand. Then she and Miley wove long branches through them to make a tight wall. Still not satisfied, Lilly took even thinner branches and wove those into the first weave until she couldn't find a place to put her fist through. It held together like a very stiff woven basket, like the ones Miley had crafted in their first week here.

She judged the door opening to be the weakest spot, so she took special time to weave a door of willows into a tight mesh so that no matter how hard a skunk or porcupine or any other animal tried, it could not possibly get through. There was no way to attach the door with hinges, but she arranged some limbs at the top so that they had a method of hooking the door in place, and when they were inside with the door closed, Lilly felt relatively safe. A bear could still get in by tearing at the door and wall if it so chose, but nothing small would be able to bother them inside their home anymore. And most importantly, the weave of the wall still allowed smoke to filter up through the top and out, allowing them to keep their fire inside.

All of these 'home improvements' took them a day and a half to make, stopping to shoot fish and eat as they went, bathing twice a day now to try and get the skunk smell to leave. Those times were Lilly's favorite parts of the day. And finally the shelter was finished. After adding some fresh pine branches along the rock wall to try and mask the skunk smell, Lilly took Miley by the hand from where she had been weaving yet another creation, and showed her their finished home.

"Welcome home, Miles. I present to you the Stewart-Truscott mansion," Lilly grinned as she thrust her arms out toward the finished and upgraded shelter.

"Lilly, this place looks amazing."

"It's okay?"

"Are you kidding me? It even smells good. Lilly, I love you!" Miley gushed as she ran over and hugged her. Lilly wrapped her arms around Miley's thin solid frame and closed her eyes, holding her tight and smiling. Oh, she felt wonderful in her arms. If she did nothing else, all she wanted was to keep making Miley proud and happy if that meant she could hold her like this.

Which brought her to think of their method of hunting and eating, or fishing and eating. It was fine…but what happened if they had to go a long time without food? What happened when the last berries had finally dropped off the bushes, or if Lilly got sick or hurt and couldn't fish? She probably needed to teach Miley how, but they also needed another way to store food, and a place to store it.

So many mistakes to learn from, and they did try to learn from them. They couldn't bury food again or leave it in the shelter, that much was plainly obvious. Because something like a bear could get at it if it wanted. So they had to store the food someplace high, somehow. High and safe.

Above the door to the shelter was a small ledge, about ten feet high, which would make a good natural storage place. It should be unreachable to animals, although that also meant it was unreachable to them as well. Lilly was pretty sure she had stopped growing, and she only reached about 5 feet three inches. Miley was a few inches taller, but they were both still five feet too short. It would be nice if they had a ladder, or could build one. But Lilly couldn't think of anything to hold the steps on. That was, until Miley drug a dead pine into camp that she had found, with many small branches sticking out. Lilly used the hatchet to chop off the branches until they were only four or five inches in length and cut the log off at about ten feet long and propped it up against the rock wall with Miley's help. It was a little heavy, but they could manage it together. And with Miley holding it steady from rolling side to side, Lilly could climb to the ledge with ease.

It was their food shelf, their pantry, as Lilly thought of it. She scraped the shelf clean from any bird manure and attached a small door across the opening that Miley had weaved using green willows, jamming it in tightly to protect their food. She didn't remember seeing any birds there in the past, probably they had been forced away from the smoke of the fire, but they had still learned their lesson. Food must be protected. When the food shelf was finished, Lilly stood back with Miley and gazed up at the rock face – the shelter below with the food shelf above. It made her proud, the home she had built with Miley. Not bad at all for someone who used to have trouble changing the tracks on her skateboard and another who couldn't be trusted to do anything physical without hurting herself with her clumsiness. Although Lilly shouldn't be surprised – the girl did grow up in Tennessee.

They had made a good shelter and food pantry, but they still had no food except for the small fish and the few remaining berries of the season. And the fish were not something they could store. Her mother had left some salmon out by mistake one time when they went on an overnight trip to visit Lilly's grandparents, and when they got back the fish smell had filled the whole house. It was the last time Lilly allowed her mother to cook seafood.

"So we have food, and we have a place to store food, but we can't store the fish," Lilly mused as she stood next to Miley, both of them admiring their handiwork.

"No. Unless we smoke them, which I don't know how to do. And I don't think I could eat it, either."

Lilly sighed and looked out over the lake when an idea came to her. They had been putting the scraps from the fish back in the water, attracting hundreds of new ones to the shallow shore. She moved down to the water.

"I wonder…"

The fish seemed to love the scraps, at least the small ones, and she had no trouble now spearing them. She'd even been able to spear one with her old fish spear now that she knew how to aim. She could just dangle a scrap in her fingers and the fish would swim right up to it.

"What are you thinking?" Miley's voice came from behind her as Lilly stood looking down at the fish in the lake.

"Do you think it would be possible to trap the fish? Like in some sort of pond?" Lilly asked, glancing up at Miley.

Miley grinned, her eyes sparkling. "Genius. Beauty and brains. I'm impressed. Must be all that 17 comin' in."

Lilly blushed as she glanced to her right at the base of the rock bluff where piles of smaller rocks had fallen from the main rock face. "I think we could use those stones to build a pen for holding the live fish."

Miley nodded in agreement and they spent the rest of the afternoon carrying rocks down the beach and making their pen. It consisted of two arms that stuck out about ten feet into the lake, curving together at the end where they had left an opening about two feet across. Miley had volunteered to weave together a gate from some small willows, creating a mesh that would close the fish in once they came back. As soon as they had started dropping stones into the water, the fish had darted away, but it didn't take long for them to come back once she threw in the fish-trash pile of bones and skin and guts. In under an hour there were close to fifty small fish in the enclosure and they used Miley's gate to close them in.

"Fresh fish!" Lilly had yelled. "I have fresh fish for sale!"

Storing live fish to eat later had been a major breakthrough for them. It wasn't just keeping from starving, it was trying to save and think ahead.

Of course, she didn't know then how sick they would get of fish.

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**Questions, comments, or concerns?** So I didn't want Lilly or Miley to be temporarily blinded by the skunk or to suffer too much from it, as Brian did in the original, because they've suffered enough and I thought they deserved a little more fun :) And we're still in 'flashback' mode, as the skunk took place in their second or third week there, and this and the last chapter are from about a month and a half in to their 'stay,' being told as Lilly remembers what they've had to do to survive. The next chapter will be like that as well, but after that we'll get back to normal story-telling mode and that should allow for more Miley…and Liley :)


	15. Chapter 15

**Rating:** Just T.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** As I was writing this, I remembered that Lilly wears contacts (the whole episode about the dorky glasses and the billboard with a giant zit). For the sake of the story, I think it works better if Lilly has perfect 20/20 vision. Also, if you hadn't figured it out, she never dated Oliver (thank God). Now go read and be very happy.

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_**15**_

_The days ran on, _folding into one another so that after a few weeks, Lilly only knew that time passed in days because Miley made a mark every morning on the wall of their shelter. But real time she measured in events. Individual days were not things to remember – it was just the sun coming up and going down. But events – those were burned into Lilly's memory and so she used them to remember time. To remember what had happened out here, to keep a mental journal.

There had been the day of first meat, which Lilly secretly referred to as something else. The day had started like all the other days – she and Miley had risen after the sun, cleaned the camp, Lilly had restocked their firewood as Miley picked any remaining berries she could find. But it was such a long time, of eating fish and looking for berries, and Lilly craved more. She craved heavier food, deeper food, more food…And more of Miley in her arms.

She was craving meat, dreaming of catching it. Sometimes during the night she would think of Mr. Stewart cooking a roast or dreamed of a Thanksgiving Day feast, and one night she had even awakened with her mouth full of saliva and the taste of pork chops lingering on her lips. It was so real, but all just a dream. And it left her engrossed with the idea of getting meat.

They had been working farther and farther out for wood, sometimes going almost a quarter of a mile away from their shelter to find it, and they had seen many small animals on their excursions. Of course, squirrels were pretty much everywhere – small reddish brown ones that would chatter at them and jumped from limb to limb as they walked along the forest floor. Miley had complained on more than one occasion that she felt like they were stalking her and swearing at her; Lilly had joked that she was just a paranoid superstar. There were also a lot of wild rabbits – large gray ones with reddish fur mixed in, as well as smaller, faster gray ones. The larger rabbits would sit still until they were quite close, then bounded and jerked two or three steps before freezing again. Lilly thought that if she practiced real hard, one day she might be able to hit one of the larger rabbits with her spear or bow and arrow. The smaller rabbits and squirrels were probably lost causes, though – they were much too small and fast.

Of course, there were also the foolish birds that liked to sit on the ground and get stepped on. Those birds exasperated Lilly to the point where she was almost going insane. They were everywhere, five or six in a flock, and they camouflaged so perfectly that it was practically impossible for Lilly to sit and rest. She would be leaning against a tree, with one of the birds sitting right in front of her only two feet away next to a willow clump and completely hidden, and it would explode into a deafening flight right in her face just when she least expected it. She just couldn't see them, and couldn't figure out how to locate them before they flew away because they stood so perfectly still and blended into the forest so perfectly well.

And the thing that made it all so aggravating was that the birds were so incredibly dumb. At least, they seemed to be dumb. Which made it almost insulting that they kept so well hidden. Lilly also couldn't get used to the way they exploded into the air when they took flight. Almost every time she or Miley went to get wood – which was pretty much every morning as they took turns restocking their pile – she would spend the whole time jumping in fright as she walked. On days that were Miley's turn, she would come back to camp fuming about the damn birds "that didn't have the brains the good lord gave a hunk of turkey jerky." On one memorable morning in particular, Lilly had actually reached for a piece of wood, what looked to be a pitchy stump at the base of a dead birch, when it had blown up in her face just as her fingers were about to touch it.

So on the day of first meat, Lilly had decided that her best bet would be to try for one of the dumb birds rather than a rabbit or a squirrel. That morning she had set out with her bow and arrow as Miley left to gather more green willows and fix her baskets, and Lilly had promised herself that she wouldn't return home without one of those birds. She would continue hunting until she brought home and ate meat with Miley. She wouldn't stop and eat berries or drink from the lake, she wouldn't take breaks back to the shelter to relax in the sun with her best friend…no, she would get a bird, and they would eat something other than fish that night.

At first, her hunt did not go so well. As she walked along the shore of the lake, end to end, she had seen plenty of birds, but only after they began to fly away. She needed to find a way to see them first, to get close enough to shoot them with her bow and arrow without them aware of her presence. But she just couldn't find a way to see the birds.

When she was about halfway around the lake, after jumping and scaring away at least twenty or so of the damn birds, Lilly finally gave up and sat down at the base of a pine tree, sighing in near defeat. She needed to figure this out, what she was doing wrong. There were birds all around her, and she had eyes…she needed to figure out how to bring those two things together.

She must be looking for them wrong. But it was more than that – she was doing something else wrong as well; she was doing it the wrong way. She knew that, but what was the right way? The morning sun had beat down on her as she walked, frying her brain as she sat at the base of the tree, but no ideas came to her until she got up and started to walk again. She hadn't taken more than two steps when a bird flew up in her face. It had been sitting there the whole time she had been thinking, right there next to her!

Lilly almost screamed.

But this time, when the bird flew in front of her, something caught her eye. The bird flew out toward the lake, and realizing it couldn't land there in the water, had flown back up the hill into the trees. When the bird had turned in mid-air, curving around toward the trees, the sun caught it and Lilly saw the bird almost as if for the first time. She saw its shape, sharp-pointed in front and flowing like a streamlined bullet shape to its fat body. It looked like a flying pear, Lilly thought, with a little head on one end.

And that had been the key she had needed all along. She had been looking for feathers, for the color of the bird on the forest floor, for it to be sitting right in front of her. Now she realized that she needed to look for the outline of the bird instead, had to look for the shape of its head and body instead of its feathers and color. She had to train her eyes to be a bird hunter.

The revelation was almost like turning on a television. Suddenly she could see things she had never seen before. In just moments, she saw three different birds sitting in front of her, and as she approached them, moving slowly and getting close enough to try and shoot them, she realized that she was going to be successful today. She would do Miley proud. They would indeed be dining on real meat, and hopefully Miley would be overjoyed.

She had missed those first three times, and many more times after that, but at least now she was seeing the birds. She could see their little fat shapes with their small pointed heads sitting all over the place in the undergrowth of the woods. Time and again she would pull back her arrow, holding it steady before letting it fly, but she still had no feathers for the arrows and they couldn't fly straight. They were little more than sticks that flopped out of the bow, sometimes flying completely sideways as she released the string. After releasing it from the bow, the arrow would just fly un-stabilized until it hit a bush or twig. So she decided to give up on the bow. It worked alright for the fish, since they would swim right up to the end of the arrow, but it wasn't any good for trying to kill something at a distance.

So she returned with her original fish spear, the one with two prongs, and put the bow aside.

At first, she tried throwing the spear, but she was not quick enough and the birds flew amazingly fast. In the end, she found that if she saw the bird sitting and moved sideways toward it – not directly at it, but on an angle – she could get close enough to put the spear point almost on the bird and thrust as she took a lunge at it. She came close twice, but it wasn't until early evening was she successful at catching her first meat.

The stupid bird had sat unknowing, moving its head side to side as it stared out at the lake, and Lilly had silently crept up to it. She expertly aimed the spear and lunged at the bird, taking it down into the ground and killing it almost instantly, before grabbing it and holding it in both hands until she was sure it was dead.

Then she had performed a silent and solo happy dance before grabbing her spear and trotting along the lake back to the shelter where she knew Miley would be puttering around or lying in the sun. As she approached the campsite, she slowed her pace and hid the bird behind her back, walking into the opening as if nothing had happened. Miley was stacking wood with her back to Lilly but turned around with a smile on her face as she heard her approach.

"There ya are! I was startin' to worry that somethin' happened to you, you've been gone all day!"

"Sorry Miles, I was busy catching dinner," Lilly grinned, wanting to let Miley in on the surprise but having fun playing the game.

"What do you mean, catchin' dinner? I haven't seen you down at the lake at all. At least I don't think…" Miley trailed off as she stared at Lilly, scrutinizing her features. "Lilly…"

"Yes?" Lilly's grin stretched into a full blown, teeth-baring smile, as she watched Miley's reaction.

"What did you catch for dinner?"

Lilly couldn't keep the chuckle from escaping her lips as she brought her hands out from behind her back and held the bird out for Miley to see. She was overly pleased with herself.

"You caught a bird! Lilly!" Miley yelled, throwing her arms around Lilly as she laughed and squeezed until Lilly almost couldn't breathe. They were both grinning like fools as they held onto each other, and Lilly closed her eyes as she buried her face into Miley's shoulder, feeling like the luckiest person alive.

"As much as I like this, Miles, I'm kind of looking forward to cooking this up for dinner."

"Okay," Miley mumbled against Lilly's shoulder as she slowly let go and took a step back, her grin still firmly in place. "Let's go cook us some bird!"

They quickly walked up to the shelter, Miley grabbing a few logs from the pile before throwing them on to the fire as Lilly set the bird and spear down. Then she sat on the ground next to it and stared at the bird. She suddenly realized that she had no idea what to do. With the fish, they just cooked them whole and just picked the meat off. But this was different.

"Umm, Miles? Do you happen to know how to clean a bird?"

Miley slumped to the sandy floor next to Lilly and blew out a breath. "No. Not exactly."

"What do you mean, 'not exactly'?"

"Well, my dad and brother would always deal with that stuff back home as I helped my mom and Mamaw in the kitchen. I watched a few times, but I've never taken the insides out or gotten rid of the feathers myself. I wouldn't even know where to start."

Lilly sighed. It had always been so simple back home in Malibu. She would go to the store and get a chicken and it was all cleaned and ready for her, no feathers or insides or blood, and then they could just bake it in the oven and eat it. Countless times she had sat at the stool in Miley's kitchen and watched as Robbie Ray fixed them dinner, sometimes explaining to her what he was doing and why. But none of those explanations had included this.

"I just want to eat meat," she mumbled as she continued to stare at the lifeless bird in front of them. She wanted it, had to have it.

"Maybe we should just start with taking the feathers off and go from there," Miley suggested, already reaching for the bird and carrying it outside to their sitting log.

In the end, the feathers came off easily. In fact, as they tried to pluck the feathers out, the fragile skin ended up pulling off as well so they just pulled the skin off the bird, almost like peeling an orange…sort of. Except it didn't smell like an orange. When the skin was completely gone, the insides had fallen out the back end of the bird and they were immediately caught in a cloud of raw, steamy odor that drifted up from the greasy coil of insides that had fallen, causing the two of them to gag. But there was something else about the smell, some kind of animal richness that triggered Lilly's hunger and overcame the sick smell.

Miley went over to the wood pile and retrieved the hatchet, holding it out to Lilly as she returned. "Do you wanna do the honors?"

As much as the idea disturbed her, Lilly knew the bird was already dead. She took the hatchet from Miley's hands and quickly cut off the neck, then the feet in the same way, trying not to think about the sound of crunching bones. A merciless hunter, she was not. She reminded herself that it was simply what they needed to do to eat. And in the end, she held something that resembled a small chicken with a dark, fat, thick breast and small legs.

From the pile of skin and guts, Lilly took out the long stiff wing and tail feathers, setting them aside for another use, and helped Miley bring the rest down to the fish pond for bait. She could probably find some way to work the feathers onto her arrows so that they would fly straight. And they were pretty too – banded and speckled in browns and grays and light reds.

After washing their hands in the lake, Lilly followed Miley back to the shelter, her mouth already watering at the thought of eating the meat. She almost couldn't wait. And after just minutes of rotating the bird over the fire using a rudimentary spit Miley had devised, the odor that wafted to her from the cooking bird reminded her of when her mother, or Robbie Ray more often than not, would bake a chicken in the oven. Lilly didn't think she could stand it any longer and when she tried to pull a piece of the breast meat off despite Miley's protests, the meat was still raw inside.

"Damn it," she yelled, shaking her burning fingers as she stared hopelessly at the cooking meat. She was so incredibly hungry, it wasn't even funny.

"Patience is a virtue, darlin'. You're gonna have to wait a little longer." Miley was grinning through the disappointed look she wore, unable to properly chastise Lilly.

And so Lilly settled back, resting her head on Miley's shoulder as she slowly turned the cooking stick, letting the juices sink back into the meat, and letting it cook and smell delicious. Soon, it didn't matter if the meat was done or not; it was black on the outside and hard and hot, and Lilly was going to eat it.

As soon as Miley set the bird on the mat she had woven to use as a plate, or rather something to keep their food out of the sand, Lilly tore a piece from the breast, a small sliver of meat, and put it in her mouth. She chewed ever so carefully and as slowly as possible so that she could get all the taste out of it, and she didn't think she'd ever tasted anything so delicious.

Never in all the food she had eaten – the hotdogs and milkshakes and fries from Rico's, the cakes and chocolate fountains at Hannah's concerts, the amazing roasts and steaks cooked up by Robbie Ray – never ever had she tasted anything as fine as that first bite of meat.

"Oh, sweet Jesus, this is amazing," Miley moaned next to her as she licked her fingers clean before ripping off another piece of meat. "I think I could die a happy woman right now."

"Mmm." Lilly agreed as she continued to savor each piece of meat she pried off the bird.

The moans of satisfaction continued until the bird was picked completely clean. Lilly had even resorted to sucking on the bones, trying to get every last piece of meat off. Just as she was reaching for another bone, Miley's quiet laugh stopped her.

"What?"

"Nothing." Miley continued to chuckle.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"Of course not, I'm just so incredibly happy, I can't help it."

Miley was lying next to the fire, her bent arms propping her upper body up as she relaxed after their feast, and she looked so content and so beautiful in her happiness that Lilly couldn't keep her eyes off of her. She allowed them to wander and travel the length of Miley's body, taking in the tanned and muscled limbs and perfect curves. And as she brought her eyes up Miley's body to her face, she was met with her burning gaze, and Miley's eyes darkened. Lilly swallowed, her heart speeding into overdrive again.

And then it happened, the electric current surged between them, surged through Lilly, and tugged at her core. The pull was so fierce, she didn't think she could fight it. But she didn't have to. Within moments, Miley had sat up and was leaning dangerously close to Lilly, their gaze not once breaking.

"Lilly…" Miley hesitated and opened her mouth like she was going to continue, only to shut it again. "I want…" She shook her head. Just as Lilly was about to comment that she'd never seen Miley at a loss for words, she suddenly found herself being pushed back into the sand, Miley's mouth softly attached to her own.

And oh, God, were her lips soft. Miley was warm, hot, and Lilly couldn't believe this was happening. But almost as quickly as the kiss had started, Miley ended it as she abruptly began backing away.

"Oh God, Lilly. I'm sorry. I just…I'm sorry," she stammered as she stumbled to her feet and practically ran out of the shelter.

Lilly was too stunned to move, her body frozen in place as her mind frantically tried to sort through what had just happened. And as soon as she realized that she had just allowed Miley to run out after kissing her, her body sprung into action and hurtled through the shelter door after her. By now the sun had set, and it took Lilly several seconds to adjust to the absence of firelight as her eyes anxiously scanned the camp. She finally spotted Miley down by the water, huddled over as she gazed out at the lake, and Lilly approached cautiously. When she reached her side, she sat down next to her and mimicked her pose, staring out at the lake as the moonlight reflected on its surface. Lilly realized for the first time that she had never seen the lake at night like this.

"Lilly, I'm sorry. I didn't mean -" Miley's voice was raw, whispery.

"Stop." She didn't want to hear this. There was meaning behind Miley's actions, and Lilly began to recognize a pattern. This definitely wasn't the first time Miley had kissed her, or almost kissed her, or even acted like she might be interested in her. There had been lingering glances, suggestive flirting, not so friendly touches, and Lilly didn't know why she hadn't seen it before. "I think we should talk about" – she waved her finger between them – "what's going on here." Lilly swallowed hard, suddenly aware that she was shaking.

"What do you mean, what's goin' on?" Miley's voice wavered. Lilly was suddenly afraid she was going to start crying, and she hated when Miley cried.

"Now don't you think I deserve a better answer than that after all this?"

"I'm sorry, Lilly, I just…I've been trying to get you out of my head. I've tried to pretend that this is just some bizarre hormonal glitch, but it's not working."

"Do you want it to work?" Lilly's heart was pounding as she listened to Miley's words. Never once did it cross her mind that Miley Stewart could ever reciprocate her feelings, and now she wasn't so sure.

"No. Yes. I don't know, Lilly, I...it's just tearing me up inside to have these feelings for you, but I can't seem to get rid of them. I just don't know what to do anymore, Lilly. I'm sorry." Miley's voice broke on the last word as the tears Lilly had feared were coming began to stream down her face.

"Look at me, Miles," she pleaded. It broke her heart to see Miley crying over this.

"I can't," came the strangled reply as more tears began pouring down her face.

"Please." Lilly watched as Miley let out a shaky breath and slowly raised her watery eyes. She drew a shaky breath in. "First of all, stop apologizing, because you haven't done anything wrong."

"But -"

"Second of all," Lilly continued, ignoring Miley's interruption, "I feel it too."

"What?"

"I mean just that. I want to kiss you too." Lilly licked her lips.

Miley wiped at her tears and turned to face Lilly. "I wouldn't stop you."

Lilly closed her eyes as her heart lurched and butterflies filled her stomach. Miley was so close she could hear her breathing, feel her heart beating, feel her body radiating heat in the cool mountain air. The night air was crisp, but that's not what was making Lilly tremble. She opened her eyes and reached out, brushing a strand of hair from Miley's face before threading her fingers in her hair. She felt like it was happening in slow motion, her hand caressing Miley's head, pulling her closer…

The distance between them finally closed and Lilly was in heaven. This kiss was better than anything she'd ever experienced – better than the brief kiss earlier, and much better than the slobbery boys in her past. Heat spread through her body as Miley moved closer, deepening the kiss as she wrapped her arms around Lilly. Miley was just so soft, yet strong; gentle, yet firm; sweet, yet extremely passionate that it was almost overwhelming. Lilly's head was spinning with the delicious sensations and heat and lack of air. She never wanted to stop, couldn't stop, but she knew she had to if she was going to keep herself from passing out.

As she pulled away, Lilly noticed two things. One, she was still trembling, but it was because of the wonderful feeling coursing through her body – not nerves, but a blissful satisfaction that made her feel truly alive for the very first time. And two, she had tears streaming down her face. It felt like a dream, had to be a dream, but Miley's voice was a confirmation that this was undeniably real.

"Oh, Lilly. I love you," Miley whispered as she finally opened her eyes, meeting Lilly's.

If Lilly thought she'd felt happy and alive before, it paled in comparison to hearing Miley say it out loud as she held her in her arms. "I love you too, Miles. So much."

Never. Never in all of her life had she felt quite like this. She was beyond ecstatic, beyond content. As she held Miley in her arms that night in front of the fire, their bellies full of meat and their hearts full of love for each other, Lilly knew this was the start of her life. Never never never had she been so sure of anything.

That was the day of first meat, and first kiss.

* * *

**Questions, comments, or concerns?** I seriously struggled over this chapter. One, I was not in the mood to work on this story _at all_. And two, I wanted to give you more Miley in the chapter but most of it was Lilly hunting and it just wasn't possible, so a lot of it felt very unoriginal to me. And three, every word I typed up felt like I was pulling it kicking and screaming out of me, only to be erased and retyped with something else. So I hope the final product was worth reading for you. The only thing that made it worth it for me was writing the last quarter of the chapter :)


	16. Chapter 16

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen.

**Note:** And now we're back to real time, when Lilly saw the wolf. No more flashbacks (well, no entire chapters of them). I think this may be the longest chapter yet…

* * *

_**16**_

_And now Lilly stood at the end of the lake_, and was not the same. She would never be the same again. Her life was complete now. She was happy, she was in love.

There had been many First Days after First Meat and First Kiss.

There was First Arrow Day. She had taken a thread from Miley's now tattered jacket and some pitch from a stump and used this to put slivers of feather she had saved from the birds onto her arrows so they would fly correctly. She never got very good at shooting arrows, so they still weren't all that accurate, but now they flew a little more properly so that if a rabbit or a bird sat in one place long enough, and she had enough arrows with her, she could hit it.

That brought First Rabbit Day. She had managed to kill one of the larger, slow rabbits with an arrow, and had cheerfully brought it back to camp, whistling a Hannah song on her walk back as she felt the now familiar feeling of pride and excitement take over her. She and Miley had happily skinned it as they had the first bird she had caught, cooked it over the fire, and savored the flavor of meat once again. It wasn't as rich as the bird, but it was still good – there were strips of fat on the back of the rabbit that cooked into the meat and made it richer. It had been another blissful evening of feasting on meat and afterwards Miley telling her and showing her just how much she appreciated and loved her.

Now Lilly went back and forth between killing rabbits and birds whenever she could, supplementing with the fish when she was unsuccessful with her hunt – well, Miley supplied the supplemental fish as she had become an expert fisherman once Lilly had shown her the techniques she herself had been successful with. Now Miley could almost catch fish with her eyes closed.

They were always hungry, but she knew how to feed them now – how to get food and how to cook food. She was a stronger person now. She knew what she could do, what Miley could do, that they were both capable of surviving on their own, without parents and supermarkets and all other modern conveniences that came with living in a twenty-first century society. They had each other, and they would be okay here. Together, they could do anything.

Lilly moved closer to the lake to a stand of nut brush. These were thick bushes with little stickler pods that held green nuts – nuts that she thought they might be able to eat but they weren't ripe yet. She was out hunting birds and they liked to hide at the base of the bushes where there was more cover.

In the second clump she came across she saw a bird and slowly moved closer to it, pausing when its feathers bristled in alarm, and moving closer again when the bird relaxed. She repeated this four more times, never looking directly at the bird and moving toward it at an angle – she had perfected this method after many attempts and it worked so well that she had actually caught one with her bare hands – until she was standing less than three feet from the bird.

The bird remained frozen in its hiding and she put a feathered arrow to the bow, and drew and released. It was a clean miss and she quickly took another arrow out of the cloth pouch at her belt, which she'd made from a piece of Miley's jacket sleeve, tied at one end to make a bottom. The bird sat still for her and she drew the second arrow and aimed and released and missed again.

This time the bird jerked a bit as the arrow landed so close it almost brushed its breast. Lilly only had two more arrows and she debated moving slowly to switch the bow and arrow for her spear and use that to kill the bird. One more shot, she decided, she would try it again before changing tactics. She slowly brought another arrow out, positioned it against the string, and aimed and released and this time she saw the flurry of feathers that meant she had been successful.

The bird had been struck off-center and was flopping around wildly. Lilly jumped on it, grabbed it, and slammed it once sharply against the ground to kill it. This was her least favorite part about hunting, making her feel like a ruthless killer, but she knew it was all a part of survival. She then stood and retrieved her fallen arrows, making sure they were all right, and went down to the lake to wash the blood off her hands. She knelt at the water's edge and put the dead bird and her weapons down and dipped her hands into the water.

She was thinking about Miley as she scrubbed her hands clean, about how happy Lilly knew she would be when she returned to camp. She could picture it now, the way Miley's eyes would light up as she stepped out of the forest into their camp where Miley would be waiting, how soft yet solid Miley would feel in her arms as she ran into them and hugged Lilly tightly, how smooth and supple Miley's lips would feel when she kissed her soundly and happily.

Her lips were curving into a smile at the thoughts when she suddenly stopped, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Later she would not know why she glanced up across the lake – some smell or sound maybe. But something caught her ear or the corner of her eye and she turned her head, her eyes halfway across the lake, when she saw it. A brown wall of fur detached itself from the forest and ran, like a runaway truck, full speed at something. She had just enough time to see that it was a moose – she knew them from pictures, but had never guessed at how large they were – before she saw what it was after. Miley.

Lilly watched in slow motion as the beast – it was a cow and she had horns – ran at Miley as she stood helpless by the water's edge, cleaning their few possessions. From this distance Lilly could almost see the fear and pain in Miley's eyes as the moose hit her in the left side of her back with its forehead, taking her and throwing her out into the water and then coming after her to finish the job.

Lilly was frozen in fear, unable to move her legs or make a sound, as she watched in absolute terror as Miley surfaced for a second before the moose was on her again, using its head to drive her back down into the water. Insane, she thought. Just that, the word, insane. Her heart pounded in her chest, cold sweat breaking out all over her body, as she watched her best friend, her first love, her life being driven deeper into the lake by the large animal, and suddenly it was over. The moose stopped its attack and walked away.

Her lungs were burning and she felt like the air had been sucked out of her as she watched in long fearful seconds before Miley sputtered to the surface, sucking in noisy breaths as she wiped mud and water from her eyes and face. Lilly let out the breath she'd been holding as she realized Miley was alive and glanced to the edge of the lake where she saw the cow standing, not ten feet away from Miley, calmly chewing on a lily pad root. She didn't appear to even see Miley as she sputtered in the water, or didn't seem to care about her, and Lilly began to carefully creep along the shore. But as soon as she began to move, so did Miley, and the moose turned to charge her again, using her head and front hooves this time, slamming Miley back and down into the water. Lilly heard Miley scream as she landed in the lake, saw her flail her arms as she tried to hit the moose on the head with her fists and she wanted to scream in fear herself.

Lilly picked up her pace until she was a mere 15 feet away, wanting to rush into the water to help Miley but knowing that she would be of no help if the moose decided to attack her too. Once more, Miley came to the surface, but Lilly could tell she was hurt now. The pain was written clearly on her face as she stayed hunched over in the water, pretending to be dead. The moose was standing again, eating, and Lilly studied her out of one eye, looking at Miley with the other, wondering how seriously she was injured, wondering if the moose would attack her again.

Lilly watched with bated breath as Miley started to move, ever so slowly; a mantra overtook her thoughts as she watched powerlessly from her spot hidden in the woods. Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay. Miley made a tiny splash and the cows head turned, the hair on her back raising up like the hair on an angry dog, and Miley stopped. A few seconds later, the moose went back to eating and Miley took another step. Again, the cow's hair raised and Miley stopped. Lilly watched the dangerous dance – move, hair up, stop, hair down, move, hair up – for what felt like hours as Miley slowly made her way to shore, a half-foot at a time. She was on her hands and knees, crawling at a snail's pace. Lilly knew it was because she was too hurt to walk, not because she was trying to avoid the moose, and a dark sense of dread filled her. Miley had to be okay, needed to be okay, because Lilly couldn't do this without her. There was almost no reason too, because life without Miley, whether here or home in Malibu, would be worthless, pointless.

Miley continued to crawl, slowly, out of the water and Lilly kept her eyes on the moose. But it seemed to ignore her and let Miley make her way up into the trees and brush. As soon as she was hidden in the canopy of the woods, Lilly rushed to her side and wrapped Miley in her arms. It was selfish, she knew, but holding Miley was the only thing to calm herself down, to slow her heart and reassure herself that Miley was all right, was alive.

"Miley," Lilly whispered, burying her face in the crook of Miley's neck as she swallowed back tears. She could feel Miley trembling, could feel the jerky breaths and hot tears as they soaked into her shirt. "Thank God, you're okay."

"Lil," Miley whispered back as she returned the desperate embrace, her fingers almost painfully digging into Lilly's back.

Lilly was just about to pick Miley up, leave everything and find somewhere safe and far away from the moose, when it moved out of the deeper water and left them, as quickly as it had come, walking down along the shoreline in the shallow water, her long legs making sucking sounds when she pulled them free of the mud. Leaning against the tree and hugging Miley, Lilly watched her go, half expecting her to turn around and charge again. But she kept going and when she was well gone from sight, Lilly released her hold of Miley and took a step back to survey the damage done to her friend. Miley's clothes were sopping wet with mud matted into them and her tangled hair. She was visibly shaking and taking short breaths as tears silently fell down her pain stricken face. Red, angry marks marred her beautiful face and the small amount of skin Lilly could see on her arms and legs. And judging by Miley's rough shallow breathing, the moose had done some damage to her ribs.

"Are you okay?" Lilly asked, knowing it was a rhetorical question but needing to hear the words anyway.

Miley nodded her head and the fist that had been squeezing Lilly's heart lessened its grip. "Okay, let's get you back to camp."

Lilly grabbed the bow and spear that she had managed to grab in her panic stricken state earlier – she had forgotten the bird in her haste to get to Miley's side - and held them in one hand as she wrapped the other arm around Miley's slim waist, helping her limp along as they walked around the lake in silence. It took them almost a half hour, taking frequent breaks as Miley wasn't able to breathe very deeply, and Lilly was worried that the moose had done more damage than she had originally thought.

When they got to the shelter, Lilly followed Miley inside and was grateful that the coals were still glowing. She grabbed a few logs from their ready pile by the door and added them to the fire, grateful again that they had restocked the wood just that morning and had enough for two or three days. As Miley carefully settled herself against Lilly's chest and wrapped her arms around her, Lilly was again grateful that she wasn't here alone, that they were both alive.

"I guess it was finally my turn, huh?" Miley whispered once she had finally settled into the least painful position she could find.

Lilly could feel her lips moving against her chest, her shallow breaths warming the spot through her clothes. She shivered as the now very familiar feeling of desire surged through her body, but it was overruled by the deeper feeling of love she felt for the girl in her arms.

"Nonsense. If I could, I wouldn't let anything hurt you." It was true, despite how unfeasible the idea was considering where they were. Lilly brushed her lips against the top of Miley's head and forced down the craving to pull her closer, knowing it would only cause her more pain.

"Hey." Lilly glanced down and met Miley's eyes that were staring into hers with startling intensity. "We're at the mercy of mother nature out here. Please don't blame this on yourself."

"I don't," Lilly corrected. "I just can't stand seeing you hurt."

A small smile graced Miley's lips as she closed her eyes and settled back against Lilly's chest. "Now ya know how I feel."

Lilly returned the smile as she gazed down at the resting girl in her arms and couldn't stop herself from petting her cheek. She was about to remove her hand when, on its own, it changed direction and she felt her forehead before brushing the hair away from Miley's eyes. It was a motion that reminded her so strongly of her mother it almost took her breath away.

As a teenager, Lilly was not all that close with her mom. There was the teenage angst and drama that stood in the way of their relationship, as well as completely different personalities. There was no strong family unit to bring them together.

When Lilly was a kid, however, her mother was always great and nurturing when she was sick, or more frequently, when she injured herself climbing trees or skateboarding. Her mother would always tenderly bandage her up, tuck her into a blanket on the couch with a kiss on the forehead and a promise that she'd be better in no time, but to be more careful in the future.

Miley was injured more seriously though, and Lilly was a little scared. She had broken a few ribs when she was younger and she knew the risks if any of them had broken into pieces or if you didn't breathe properly. Hopefully Miley was just badly bruised and not broken. She left her hand on Miley's cheek a little longer than necessary, fear coursing through her. Apparently too in pain to be afraid, Miley leaned into the touch and sighed.

God, she looked miserable. Lilly would give anything to have some pain pills, anything to lessen the discomfort she knew Miley was in. "I love you Miles. Please try to get some sleep."

When Miley gently nodded, Lilly bent over as much as she could and pressed a kiss to her forehead, much like her mother used to do to her, and closed her own eyes. As she dozed off, Lilly couldn't think of anything else but the insanity of the afternoon, of the random moose attack, and she fell asleep with her mind trying to make the moose have reason for hurting the most important thing in her life.

The noise awakened her.

It was a low roaring sound that came from the wind. Lilly's eyes snapped open not because it was loud but because it was new. She had felt wind in their shelter before, felt the rain that came with the wind and had heard the thunder many times in the past forty-nine days, but nothing like this. This noise was low, almost alive, like from a throat, a roar. It was a far-off roar, but it was coming at them and when she was fully awake she gripped Miley's still form against her body as she listened in the darkness.

The sound was so strange, a mystery. Goosebumps erupted on her arms as she thought of the sound as a spirit, a bad omen, a bad sound. She wanted to throw more logs on the fire, felt that she should get ready, but for what she didn't know. The sound was coming for them, and she had to be ready. The sound wanted them.

Lilly gently rolled Miley onto her back causing the brunette to moan in her sleep and Lilly felt her heart clench at the sound. The last thing she ever wanted to do was cause Miley any more pain. She loved her so deeply she almost felt like she could feel the pain herself and she wanted to cry. But there was no time to dwell on the injured Miley, so Lilly forced the thoughts out of her mind. She found her bow and spear where they were hanging on the pegs of the shelter wall and brought the weapons back to their bed that Miley had made of pine boughs. It made her feel safer, but she still didn't understand this new threat.

It was a restless threat, she thought, and she crawled out of the shelter to study the sky. But it was too dark to see anything. She knew the sound, somewhere deep in her memory, something she had read about or seen. Something…oh, she thought. Oh, no.

It was wind, like the sound of a train, and she had heard the sound before on a family trip to Texas when she was six. She knew what the sound meant now. Tornado. The roaring mysterious sound meant bad wind and it was coming for them. God, she thought, first the moose and now this – all in one day. This wasn't fair.

But it was too late to do anything, if there was anything that they could do. In the strange stillness Lilly looked to the night sky, and then ran back to the shelter, hoping it would keep them safe.

She crawled to Miley and stared at her beautiful face. She always looked so peaceful when she slept, and Lilly felt bad about waking her. Especially because she had just managed to survive being attacked only a few hours earlier, and knowing it must have been difficult to fall asleep through the pain. But she knew she had to wake her, had to warn her about the storm, and so she reached out and gently shook Miley, silently cringing as she watched Miley's face turn from peaceful sleep to painful awareness.

Miley sleepily blinked her eyes as she adjusted to the darkness, hearing the noise, and then licked her lips before speaking. "What's goin' on?"

"Tornado. It's really close, and I'm hoping it stays away from us, but I thought you should be awake for it." Lilly responded, lovingly brushing the hair away from Miley's eyes, which had widened in alarm.

"Oh, that's bad," Miley croaked, "real bad. Do you think we'll be safe in here?"

"I dunno. Maybe it will stay away from us." But Lilly had spoken too soon.

She was about to help Miley into a sitting position when it hit. Later she would think of it like the moose attack, like insanity. She was taken in the back by some mad force and driven down and back into the shelter on her face, slammed down into the pine branches of their bed and just missing ramming Miley with her body. She barely heard Miley yell out her name over the howling, roaring noise that was overpowering her hearing and she hoped that Miley would be spared.

At the same time the wind tore at the fire and sprayed red coals and sparks in a cloud around them. Then it backed out, seemed to hesitate momentarily, and returned with a massive roar; a roar that took Lilly's ears and mind and body.

She was whipped against the front wall of the shelter like a rag, felt a ripping pain in her ribs and she cried out, then was hammered back down into the sand once more while the wind took the whole wall, their bed, the fire, her tools – all of it – and threw it out into the lake, gone out of sight, gone forever. She felt a burning on her neck and reached up to find red coals there. She brushed them off, wincing at the searing pain, and the wind hit again, heavy tearing gusts that snapped trees in the forest around the rock. She felt her body slipping out from under the ledge and she clawed at the rocks and sand to hold herself down, but to no avail. Finally, she felt a hand firmly grasp hers, and she couldn't think or do anything but reach up and hold on to Miley's hand for dear life. She knew that she was praying but didn't know what the prayer was – knew that she wanted to be alive, to stay here, for both of them to be okay, and then the wind moved to the lake.

Lilly heard the great, roaring sucking sounds of the water and opened her eyes to see the lake torn by the wind, the water slamming in great waves that went in all ways, fought each other and then rose in a spout of water going up into the night sky like a wet column of light. It was beautiful and terrible at the same time.

The tornado tore one more time at the shore on the opposite side of the lake – Lilly could hear trees being ripped down and uprooted in the darkness and it was all so eerie. And then it was gone, as rapidly as the wind had come it left them in utter destruction. Nothing was left but Lilly, Miley, and pitch darkness.

"Shit," she murmured as she searched the campsite. "No fire, no shelter, no tools or bed…"

"Back to square one," came Miley's quiet response as she sat huddled underneath the overhang of what used to be their shelter, shivering in the cool night air.

As if to emphasize the point, the mosquitoes – with the fire gone and protective smoke no longer saving them – came back in thick, nostril-clogging swarms. All that was left was the hatchet that Lilly had begun carrying on her belt. At least they had that. But now it began to rain and in the downpour she knew she would never find anything dry enough to get a fire going. All that stocked wood, the painstaking hours Miley had spent making extra fire starters – it was all gone, had all been pointless in the end. At last Lilly pulled her battered body back in under the overhang, where their bed had been, and curled up next to Miley, wrapping her arms gently around the other girl.

Sleep didn't come though, it couldn't come with all the insects trying to eat her alive and the pain and the cold. So she lay the rest of the night, slapping mosquitoes and willing the tears that wanted to spill down her cheeks away. Crying was pointless. She let her mind drift to the previous day instead. This morning she had been fat – well, almost fat – and happy, sure of everything, with good weapons and food and the sun in her face and things with Miley pretty much perfect. But inside of one day, just one day, she had lost almost everything – the moose had come close to taking Miley and the tornado had taken everything else. Just like that.

But there is a difference now, Lilly thought – there really is a difference. They might be hit, but they weren't done. When the light of the new day comes, they will start to rebuild. They still had the hatchet, and that's all they had in the first place. And now, they knew how to do it all. That was the difference now – they had changed, and they were tough, and they had one thing Mother Nature didn't. They had each other, and together they were able to figure things out.

In the end, right before dawn a kind of cold snap came down – something else new, this cold snap – and the mosquitoes settled back into the damp grass and in Miley's arms she could sleep. Or doze. And the last thought she had that morning as she closed her eyes was: I hope the tornado hit the moose.

When she awakened the sun was cooking the inside of her mouth and had dried her tongue to leather. She had fallen into a deeper sleep with her mouth open just at dawn and it tasted as if she had been sucking on her foot all night. Miley was deeper under the overhang, in the shade and still sleeping peacefully, so Lilly decided to let her rest.

She rolled out and almost bellowed with pain from her ribs. They had tightened in the night and seemed to pull at her chest when she moved. She slowed her movements and stood slowly, without stretching unduly, and went to the lake for a drink. At the shore she kneeled, carefully and with great gentleness, and drank and rinsed her mouth. To her right she saw that the fish pond was still there, although the willow gate was gone and there were no fish. They would come back though, and as soon as she could make a spear or bow she would get one or two for bait and breakfast and they would come back.

She turned to look at the shelter – saw that some of the wood for the wall was scattered around the beach, then saw her bow jammed into a driftwood log, broken but with the precious string still intact. It wasn't so bad now, she thought, not everything was completely gone. She looked down the shoreline for other parts of the shelter wall and that's when she saw it.

Out in the lake, in the short part of the L, something curved and yellow was sticking about a foot out of the water. It was a bright color, not an earth color, and for a second she couldn't place it. Then she knew it for what it was.

"It's the tail of the plane!" She shouted out loud, forgetting that Miley was sleeping. There it was, sticking up out of the water. The tornado must have flipped the position of the plane and raised the tail.

"Well, look at that." Miley commented from her side, awake now after Lilly's outburst. And at the same moment a cutting thought hit her. She thought of the pilot, still in the plane, and that brought a shiver and massive sadness that seemed to settle over her. As if thinking the same thoughts, Miley spoke again. "Should we say or do somethin' for the pilot?"

"I don't know. I don't know any religious words or what people usually say in these situations."

"I do, just say what's in your heart." Miley gently took Lilly's hand and guided her down to the side of the water and looked at the plane before bowing her head. "Live in peace with the Earth, as in death, as in birth. May you prosper and have a good life. Have rest, have rest forever."

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**Questions, comments, or concerns? **Sorry if this wasn't what you were expecting after the last chapter :) The moose originally attacked Brian in the book, so I hope I did it justice through Lilly's eyes as she watched helplessly from the shore. Also, a female moose is called a cow, for those of you who might have been confused. This chapter was a lot of Gary Paulsen, so sorry about that. I've been a little uninspired to work on or be too creative with this story lately, but wanted to get a chapter out to you sooner rather than later. I'm feeling more inspired today, so hopefully I can work and get a head start on the next few chapters.


	17. Chapter 17

**Rating:** T. By now you're hopefully aware this is femslash.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Hannah Montana. Based on the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen (which I also do not own).

**Note:** Sorry? I know - but I promise to never go over a month without updating. Really, I hate myself if I go longer than a week without posting something. I have my reasons, but I won't bore you, although I will say that the lack of response after the last chapter was a little disheartening and left me a little unmotivated to write more of this story. I know, the last chapter probably wasn't what you were hoping for, so I made this chapter a little longer and added much more happy Liley to make it up to you.

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_**17**_

_Lilly turned and looked at Miley,_ taking in her beauty – both inside and out - and marveling at the fact that she was all hers. The thought startled her as she used to hate the idea of belonging to someone, finding the idea a little ridiculous that just because you loved someone they were yours - a possession of some sort. But, oh, was she wrong. Especially when you finally get the guts to admit your feelings to your best friend and find that your love is reciprocated. Yes, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that really is the only chance for real happiness. Living out here in the middle of nowhere had stripped her life down to the bare essentials, and her priorities in life had become crystal clear. Food, shelter, and Miley. All the trivial things that most people worried about didn't really matter in the end. Life here was freeing in many ways, illustrating that love really is what living is all about, but it did drive home the fact that they were all alone out here.

Lilly felt a lump form in her throat as she admired the girl standing next to her, the girl who was her best friend and the love of her life, the girl that belonged to her just as much as she belonged to Miley. The events of yesterday were still vivid in her mind and the thought of possibly losing Miley sent a chill through her body. Their campsite was in complete wreckage – they had to rebuild the shelter, get a new fire going, find some food or get ready to find some food, remake the weapons – and Lilly knew she wouldn't be able to do any of it if Miley hadn't survived. She wouldn't know what to do with herself if she were left truly alone.

Miley slowly raised her head from her silent reflection and turned to Lilly, a sad smile on her face. "I guess we were lucky, weren't we?"

The picture of the pilot's body still strapped in the plane slowly morphed into Miley in Lilly's mind and her breath caught as pain sliced through her heart. She reached out and pulled the other girl tightly to her chest, forgetting about their injuries and wincing in pain as Miley wrapped her arms around her. She heard Miley groan as well as their bodies connected, but she didn't care. She needed to know for certain that Miley was really okay and they would continue to live this life together.

"Quite a pair, the two of us." Miley laughed as she buried her face into Lilly's neck. "Gimpy and Gimpier."

"I know, right?" Lilly laughed at the play on Amber and Ashley's previous trick on them. The day they tried to raise money for the United People's Relief fund felt like a different lifetime and she had to admit that this place had one thing going for it – no lying evil nasties to make their life hell. Suddenly a thought popped into her mind. "Wait. Am I Gimpy or Gimpier?"

Lilly felt Miley's lips curve into a smile as she pressed them to Lilly's neck, lightly kissing the sensitive skin and causing goose bumps to erupt down Lilly's arms as her stomach tightened. "Uh huh." Miley's tone turned flirty. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Yes…it – it's important…to me." Lilly moaned as Miley continued the slow assault on her neck. "If you don't stop doing that I won't be able to think straight today."

"What if I don't want you to think straight?" Miley asked, pulling back in Lilly's arms and holding Lilly's gaze as she licked her lips in invitation, desire clearly evident in her eyes. Lilly's knees weakened and she wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the day kissing Miley senseless. But that would just have to wait. First things first: food, then shelter, then Miley.

"As much as I'm enjoying this Miles, we've got work to do, starting with rebuilding the fire." Lilly sighed, resting her forehead against Miley's. "These damn mosquitoes are killing me."

Miley groaned. "Okay. I'll make the fire starter if you get the wood."

At Miley's puppy dog expression, Lilly grinned. "I see how it is. You give me the labor intensive job and take the easy one for yourself."

"Hey, I'll have you know, shreddin' birch bark is diligent work."

Lilly cupped Miley's cheeks, bringing her in for a soft kiss. "Sure it is. Just take it easy, ok? You look like the poster girl for a battered women's shelter."

"I'm fine. I just bruise like a cantaloupe. Now get to work, woman." Miley playfully swat Lilly as she turned to the woods. She had to walk slowly because her ribs hurt, so she hadn't gone far before Miley called out her name. She turned to find her girlfriend smiling at her. "I love you."

Lilly grinned. Her pulse was racing and she didn't think it would ever stop reacting that way to Miley. At least, she hoped it wouldn't. "I love you too, Miles."

The search for dry wood proved to be difficult. The rain had soaked virtually all the wood Lilly could find. Finally she located some in a thick evergreen where the top branches had covered the lower dead ones, keeping them dry. She had great difficulty breaking them, not being able to pull much with her arm or chest muscles, but she finally got enough wood to start the fire and keep it going for the rest of the day and into the night.

She met Miley back at the camp, who had gathered some dry grass and twigs and made a fire nest with the birch bark. They had to work slowly but even so, with their new skill they had a new fire going in less than half an hour. The flames cut the cool damp morning, crackling and bringing Lilly's spirits up as she wrapped her arms around Miley and enjoyed its warmth, resting before they set about getting a shelter squared away. Not to mention the fire chased away the incessant mosquitoes.

Much of the wood from their original wall was still nearby, strewn along the beach, and up in back of the ridge Lilly actually found a major section of the weave still intact. The wind had torn it out, lifted it, and thrown it to the top of the ridge and Lilly felt lucky once more that they had not been killed or more seriously injured – which would have been the same thing.

Together, she and Miley jerked and dragged wood around until the wall was once more in place – crudely, but they could improve it later. They had no trouble finding enough pine boughs to make a new bed. The storm had torn the forest to pieces – up in back of the ridge it looked like a giant had thrown a temper tantrum and took his anger out on the trees. Huge pines were twisted and snapped off, blown sideways. The ground was so littered with limbs and tree-tops sticking every which way that it was hard to get through. They pulled enough thick limbs in for a bed, green and spicy with the new broken sap smell, and by evening they were both exhausted, hungry, and hurting. But they had something close to a place to live again, a home to sleep and cook and be.

As Lilly lay back in the darkness, her stomach grumbled, painfully reminding her that neither of them had eaten anything all day. The berries were surely gone by now so she would have to go back to hunting right away. "Maybe the fish will be back tomorrow. I can make a spear and new bow and get us some food."

Miley sleepily murmured her agreement from her position curled up next to the fire. Lilly faced her and the flames, curving her body along Miley's, draping her arm around her middle and pulling closer to her best friend. She drowsily rested her head on her arm, and as she closed her eyes and began to fall asleep, a picture of the plane came into her head. There it was, the tail of the plane sticking out of the water, and inside near the tail somewhere was the survival pack. It must have survived the crash because the plane's main body was still intact. That was the picture in her mind – the tail sticking up with the survival pack inside. Her eyes snapped open. If she could get at the pack, it probably had food and knives and matches. It might even have a sleeping bag and warm clothes. It might have fishing gear. Oh, it must have so many wonderful things inside it, and if she could just get into the plane to get it they would be rich.

She watched the flames and smiled. Tomorrow she would see about the pack.

Lilly slept deeply, a healing sleep as she was wrapped up in Miley, and dreamed of the plane's tail sticking out of the water. In the morning she carefully extricated herself from Miley's arms and rolled out of their shelter before true light. In the gray dawn she quietly built up the fire, leaving Miley to sleep, and found more wood for the day, feeling almost chipper because her ribs were much better now. With camp ready for the day she looked to the lake. Part of her half-expected the plane tail to be gone, sunk back into the depths and disappeared as if a dream, but it was still there and didn't seem to have moved at all.

She looked down at her feet at the edge of the water and saw that there were some fish in the fish pen looking for the tiny bits of bait left from before the wind came. She fought impatience to get on her new project of getting to the plane and remembered sense. Food came first. It would give her the strength needed to take on her new project. Plus, she wanted to surprise Miley with breakfast awaiting her when she woke up today.

She quickly got to making a fish spear with two points, not peeling the bark all the way back but just working with the pointed end. It took her less than an hour and all the time she worked she sat staring at the tail of the plane sticking up in the air, her hands working on the spear and her mind working on the problem of getting what was inside the plane.

When the spear was done, although still crude because of her haste to get food and get going, she jammed a wedge between the points to spread them apart and headed to the fish pond. There weren't clouds of fish like before, but at least ten were swimming around, and she picked one of the larger ones. She put the spear point just under the surface of the water, held it, and then thrust with a flicking motion of her wrist when the fish was just above the point.

The fish was pinned neatly and she caught three more with the same ease, carrying her and Miley's breakfast back up to the fire. They had a fish board now, a piece of wood Lilly had flattened with the hatchet that leaned up by the fire for cooking the fish so they didn't have to hold a stick over the flames. She put the four fish on the board, pushed sharpened pegs through their tails into cracks on the cooking board, and propped it next to the reddest part of the coals. In moments the fish were hissing and cooking with the heat and Miley stirred at the smell of the hot breakfast.

"Oh, you're a goddess, Lilly," Miley grumbled, still half asleep as she sat up and stretched her arms above her head. Lilly felt a surge of arousal shoot through her at Miley's raspy, honey thick accent that she was privy to hearing every morning. Oh, the things this girl did to her.

"Good morning, Miles. Feeling better?" Lilly asked, noticing Miley moving her arms and twisting her torso to test her body for soreness and pain.

"Mornin'. And yeah, I don't feel any more sharp pains in my chest when I move, so that's good." Miley moved to sit next to her and Lilly leaned over to give her a quick kiss that Miley promptly deepened for several minutes. "Mmm…did you do all this while I was still sleepin'?"

"Yeah, and you woke up just in time. Breakfast is ready." Her voice was slightly husky, but she couldn't help it. Miley did things to her body that she just couldn't control. It was wonderful and terrifying at the same time.

They sat huddled over the board, picking the steaming meat from under the loosened skin and eating it. The fish didn't fill Lilly, didn't even come close. The fish meat was too light for that. But they did give her strength – she could feel it moving into her arms and legs – and quieted the grumbling in her stomach. Now she could begin to work on the plane project.

While making the spear she had decided that what she would have to do was make a raft and paddle over to the plane, tying it there for a working base. Somehow she would have to get into the tail – rip or cut her way in – and however she did it she would need an operating base of some kind. A raft.

"What're you thinkin' about?" Miley's voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Huh?"

"You spaced out for a while just now. Visiting your home planet?" Miley grinned and leaned away before Lilly could swat her.

"Ha ha!" Lilly laughed sarcastically. "Actually, I was thinking about building a raft to get to the plane and try to find the survival pack. Remember the pilot telling us it was in case we had to make an emergency landing?"

Lilly watched as Miley's eyes lit up at the thought. "Wait, how are we supposed to get it? Isn't it inside the plane?"

"I figured I'd worry about that once I got out to the plane. But first we need a raft."

Which, Lilly ruefully found, was much easier said than done. After cleaning up after their breakfast and baiting the fish pond with fresh scraps, they set about looking for wood to build the raft with. There were plenty of logs around. The shore was literally littered with driftwood, new and old, tossed up and scattered by the tornado. And it was a simple matter to find four of them about the same length and pull them together.

Keeping them together was the problem. Without rope or nails the logs just rolled away from each other. They tried wedging them together, crossing them over each other, but nothing seemed to work. And Lilly would need a stable platform to get into the plane. It was becoming frustrating and she had a momentary loss of temper – as she would have done in the past, as her other self – and snapped at Miley.

The stricken look on Miley's face was enough to break her heart and Lilly felt ashamed of her behavior. "I'm sorry, Miles. I just want this to work so badly."

"I know, it's okay. Come on, let's take a break and think this through again." Miley grabbed her hand and pulled her down onto the beach, huddling next to her as they both stared at the logs. Sense, Lilly just had to use her sense. That's all it took to solve problems.

It came to her then. The logs they had selected were smooth and round and had no limbs. What they needed were logs with limbs sticking out. Then they could cross the limbs of one log over the limbs of another and "weave" them together as they had done the wall of the shelter, the food shelf cover, and the fish gate. Lilly scanned the area above the beach and found four dry treetops that had been broken off by the storm. These had limbs and she jumped up to drag them down to their work area at the water's edge, explaining to Miley the new plan as she fitted them together.

It took most of the day. The limbs were cluttered and stuck any which way and they would have to cut one to make another fit, then cut one from another log to come back to the first one, then still another from a third log would have to be pulled in.

But at last, in the late afternoon they were done and the raft – which Miley had nicknamed Brushpile One after its looks – hung together even as Lilly pulled it into the water off the beach. It floated well, if a little low in the water, and in the excitement she jumped onto the raft and had Miley push her off in the direction of the plane. She couldn't stand on it but could paddle alongside or kick from the back of the raft.

She was only ten feet out in the lake when she realized she had no way to keep the raft at the plane. She needed some way to tie it in place so she could work from it. She begrudgingly paddled back to shore.

Miley stood at the water's edge, her arms crossed against her chest as she watched Lilly bring the raft back onto the beach. An eyebrow raised in question. "Back so soon?"

"We don't have a rope to tie the raft to the plane." Lilly was stymied. The only thing they had was the bowstring and the other cut shoe-string in Miley's shoes. She cursed herself for not wearing a different pair of shoes herself, ones that laced instead of slipping on.

"What about my jacket? You already took a sleeve off to make an arrow pouch."

"Yeah, that could work!" Lilly found the tattered arrow pouch and began tearing it into narrow strips, tying them together to make a rope about four feet long. It wasn't strong, she couldn't use it to pull a Tarzan and swing from a tree – although the thought of a rope swing out into the lake and Miley jumping off it stark naked was an appealing thought – but it should hold the raft to the plane.

Once more she slid the raft off the beach and out into the water until she was chest deep. She had left her shoes and clothes with Miley at the shore, swimming in only her underwear, and when she felt the sand turn to mud between her toes she kicked off the bottom and began to swim.

Pushing the raft, she figured, was like trying to push an aircraft carrier. All the branches that stuck down into the water dragged and pulled, and the logs themselves fought any forward motion. She hadn't gone more than twenty five feet when she realized that it was going to be much harder than she thought to get the raft to the plane. It barely moved and if she kept going this way she would reach the plane just as the sun set beneath the trees. She decided to turn back again, spend the night and start early in the morning, and she pulled the raft once more onto the sand next to Miley.

"Miss me?" Miley grinned as she watched Lilly wipe the water from her eyes and ring out her hair.

Lilly smiled and opened her mouth to respond but the witty remark died on her lips as she caught sight of Miley hungrily scanning her body. The heat of her blush flushed her face and chest and her heart nearly doubled its beat. Her mouth suddenly turned dry and she tried to clear the lump in her throat. "Uhh…Miles? Can I have my clothes?"

Miley brought her eyes back to Lilly's face and stepped closer to hand over the garments, their eyes not once breaking the simmering gaze. Lilly gulped as their hands brushed and she felt the electricity flow between them. God, how she wanted Miley, more than anything she had ever wanted before. This was ardent, primal, love. For the first time, she felt almost powerless over her physical desires. "Th-thanks."

Instead of letting go, Miley pulled her closer until there was less than an inch separating them. Lilly could see the desire written clearly in Miley's eyes and she was sure her own mirrored the burning want she saw there. Miley's gaze dropped to Lilly's lips and Lilly found herself licking them in anticipation as Miley leaned forward before capturing her in a heated kiss. Their bodies melded together as Miley ran her hands across Lilly's naked back, exploring the newfound bare skin as they dipped lower and lower, and Lilly couldn't stop the deep moan that escaped her throat. She instantly regretted it as she felt Miley stiffen in her arms before drawing away, a slight panicked look on her face as she backed away towards the shelter.

Lilly let out a frustrated sigh and quickly tugged her shirt and pants back on, shivering in the cool evening air despite the heat Miley had been creating in her body only moments before. If it were up to her she would have shucked her remaining clothes and hastily removed Miley's as well, but she knew Miley wasn't ready for that, if the past few minutes weren't proof enough. The last few times their make-out sessions had gotten a little hot and heavy, Miley had been the one to stop it from going any further. Lilly didn't know what she was waiting for, but she would wait forever for Miley if that's what it took.

Patience. She was better now but impatience still ground at her every now and then. Like right now, with Miley and the plane project. So she took a deep breath and sat at the edge of the fish pond with the spear she had made earlier that morning and caught four more fish. She had more to choose from now, the bait from earlier bringing in larger fish that would do more for her ravenous appetite, and she brought the catch back to the fire to cook.

As she entered the shelter, she found Miley poking at the coals with a stick, watching as the end caught fire then turned to a glowing red.

"Hey." Lilly set the fish down on the cooking board and cautiously sat next to Miley.

"Hey," Miley quietly replied, still refusing to look at Lilly as she concentrated on her stick.

Lilly let out a breath as she stared at the fire. Nothing in life was ever easy and sometimes she felt overwhelmed with how much she didn't know. Like how to survive once the snow came or how to construct a solid bow. Or how to understand what was going on with Miley when she knew the other girl didn't understand either. It was tough enough being a teenager without the added uncertainties of life in the wilderness, falling in love with your best girl friend, and a budding relationship that was on the brink of moving to the next level. Instead of confronting her, Lilly left Miley with her thoughts as she cooked the fish, and they ate in silence.

When she had finished her dinner she went out to drag in more wood for the night and the next day and then relaxed on the beach, resting against the log bench. The sun was beginning to set over the trees in back of the ridge when Miley finally joined her, leaning her head on Lilly's shoulder as they stared out at the lake.

"I love you," Miley murmured as she cuddled further into Lilly's side.

"Well that's good. Because I love you too." Lilly kissed the top of Miley's head before leaning her own against it, wrapping her arm around Miley's shoulder.

"I'm sorry about earlier…" Miley paused. "It's just, I get scared sometimes about how strongly I feel. And I wish I could just go downstairs and talk to my dad over a bowl of ice cream. Ask him things like how you know when it's right, and if it's normal to want you almost every second of every day. God, Lilly, you have to know how much I love you, how much I want you."

Lilly tightened her grip on Miley's shoulder, pulling her further into her side. "I do know. And you'll know when it's right for you, Miles."

"How do you know that?"

"The same way I know I love you, and that what we have is real and right. You're the most sure thing I have in my life, Miley." Lilly smiled as she felt Miley wrap her arms around her middle, holding her tight as they watched the unbelievable beauty in front of them. The sun exploded the sky, blowing it up with the setting color that came down into the water of the lake, lighting the trees and the world around them in amazing colors.

When the sun finally set, Lilly helped Miley to her feet and they made their way back to the shelter where Lilly fed the fire to cut the night chill. That was happening more frequently now, the late summer chill to the air, the smell of fall looming. She went to sleep holding Miley and thinking about a kind of reverse question. She didn't know if they would ever get out of here, how it would be possible, but if they did somehow get rescued to go back to living their lives in California the way they had been, would it be the opposite of now? Would she be sitting watching television with Miley and suddenly think about the sunset up in back of the ridge and wonder how the color looked in the lake?

Sleep came to her as she realized she didn't even miss television. She had everything she wanted sleeping peacefully against her chest.

In the morning the chill was more pronounced and Lilly could see tiny wisps of vapor on their breaths as Miley woke with her for once. Instead of getting up and throwing wood on the fire and getting ready for the day, Lilly wrapped her arms tighter around her girlfriend and enjoyed a few lazy minutes together as they snuggled and talked about nothing of importance. It was only when Lilly remembered her plans for the plane that they finally disentangled from each other and headed for the lake. This time as she left her clothes with Miley, the other girl smiled shyly as Lilly quickly kissed her on the lips and headed into the water. Perhaps because the air was so cool the water felt warm as she waded in. She made sure the hatchet was tied securely to the raft and the raft still held together before pushing the raft and kick-swimming toward the tail of the plane.

As before, it was a very slow going. Once a small current of wind came up against her and she seemed to be standing still and by the time she was close enough to the tail to see the rivets in the aluminum she had been in the water for over two hours, was nearly exhausted and wished she had remembered to eat breakfast before hastily setting out. She was also wrinkled as a raisin and ready for a break.

The tail looked much larger when she got next to it, with a major part of the vertical stabilizer showing and perhaps half of the elevators. Only a short piece of the top of the fuselage, the plane's body toward the tail, was out of the water. It was just a small curve of aluminum, and at first she couldn't see a place to tie the raft, but as she pulled herself along the elevators to the end she found a gap by the hinges where she could feed the makeshift rope through.

With the raft secure, she steadily climbed on top of it and lay there on her back for fifteen minutes, resting and letting the early morning sun's rays warm her as her thoughts drifted to the beautiful girl waiting at camp for her. And the job, she thought, looked impossible. To have any chance of successfully getting into the plane she would have to be strong when she started.

Somehow she had to get inside the plane. All openings, even the small rear cargo hatch, were underwater so she couldn't get at them without diving and coming up inside the plane…where she would be trapped.

She shuddered at that thought and then remembered what was in front of the plane, down in the bottom of the lake, still trapped in the seat – the body of the pilot. Sitting there in the water – Lilly could see him, the big man with his hair waving in the current, eyes open…

Stop, she thought. Stop that thinking. She was nearly at the point of swimming back to shore and asking Miley to do it even though she knew the girl couldn't swim well. But the image of the survival pack kept her at the plane. If she could just get it out of the plane, or just get into it and pull something out, like a candy bar. It would be worth it.

But how did she get inside the plane? She rolled off the raft and pulled herself around the plane. No openings anywhere. Three times she put her face in the water and opened her eyes and looked down. The water was murky, but she could see perhaps six feet and there was no obvious way to get inside. She was blocked.

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**Questions, comments, or concerns? **I'm done making promises about when the next chapter will be posted, because we all know I suck at keeping them. But I do promise to get it up as soon as my five minute attention span will allow me. Now, go vote on the poll on my profile page. NOW. Unless you don't care about what I write about. Even though you should. But review first before you leave this page.


	18. Chapter 18

**Rating:** T.

**Disclaimer: **I still do not own Hannah Montana or the book _Hatchet_ by Gary Paulsen (well, I do own a copy).

**Note:** Sorry in advance, but there is little Liley interaction this chapter. We're getting to the end of the story though…two more chapters after this! I wrote this chapter listening to 'Can't be Tamed' (hopefully you all bought it, since it's pretty good!), so sorry if it doesn't flow too well - I have a hard time listening to music and writing at the same time. And thanks to everyone who reviewed, I can't say enough how much I appreciate it. And thanks to those who voted on my poll as well! If you didn't, you still can. I'll leave the poll open until this story is finished.

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_**18**_

_Lilly swam around the tail of the plane two more times, _pulling herself along on the stabilizer and elevator, but there simply wasn't a way in to the plane that she could see, or that was immediately obvious.

She had been stupid to think she could just come out here and get inside the plane, she thought. Nothing was that easy, especially out here, in this place. She should have known that, she shouldn't have allowed herself to get her hopes up so high. She shouldn't have promised Miley a survival pack.

She slammed her fist against the body of the plane in anger, and to her complete surprise the aluminum covering gave easily under the blow. She hit it again, and once more it bent and gave and she found that even when she didn't hit it she could move it by pushing on it. It was just a thin aluminum skin over a skeleton frame, and if it gave that easily she might be able to force her way through…

The hatchet! She might be able to cut through to the inside with the hatchet. She reached to the raft and untied the tool from one of the branches, picking a place on the plane where the aluminum gave when she pushed at it, and took an experimental swing.

The blade cut through the aluminum as if it was thin paper, and the screech of metal on metal grated her nerves for a split second. But with three more swings, she had made a hole the size of her hand and could see four cables that she guessed were the control cables going back to the tail of the plane. She quickly attacked the shell of the plane with a frenzied series of swings to make an even larger opening and she was bending a piece of aluminum away from two aluminum braces when she accidentally dropped the hatchet.

It went straight down past her legs. She felt it bump her foot and then go down, down into the water and for a second she couldn't think, couldn't realize what had just happened. All this time, all the living and the fighting and the struggling to survive, the hatchet had been everything to them. It was always at their side, and without it, they would have nothing. No fire, no tools or weapons…they would be nothing. The hatchet had been everything.

And she had dropped it.

"Arrrgghhh!" She yelled, screamed rather, choking on the aggravation, a cry of rage at her own carelessness. The hole in the plane was still too small for anything and now she didn't even have a tool to help her get inside.

"That was the kind of thing I would have done before," she said to the lake, the sky, the trees. "When I first got here, and before, I would have been careless. Not now. Not now…I can't let her down."

Yet she had and she hung on to the raft for a moment, just feeling sorry for herself, for her own stupidity and for letting down Miley with her clumsy mistake. But as before, the self-pity didn't accomplish anything and she knew that there was only one course of action to take.

She had to get the hatchet back. She had to dive down into the murky depths of the lake and get it back.

But how deep was the water? In the deep end of Oliver's backyard pool she'd had no problem as a kid getting to the bottom and retrieving random objects they used to throw to the bottom in a silly game. But that was only about eleven feet. She usually liked to stay on top of the water, preferably surfing in an awesome wave, not swimming to the bottom of it.

It was impossible to know the exact depth here, but she was sure it was deeper than eleven feet. The front end of the plane, anchored by the weight of the engine, was obviously on the bottom but it came back up at an angle so the water wasn't as deep as the plane was long, however long that was. She guessed it was time to figure that out.

Lilly pulled herself out of the water so her chest could fully expand, took two deep breaths and then swiveled and dove, pulling with her arms and kicking off the raft bottom with her feet.

Her first thrust took her down a good eight feet but the visibility was only five feet beyond that, and she could not see the bottom yet. She clawed down another six or seven feet, the pressure pushing in her ears until she held her nose and popped them, and just as she ran out of breath and began heading back up, she thought she saw the bottom – four or maybe five more feet below her.

She frantically pushed her way back up, exploding out of the water and bumping her head on the side of the elevator when she surfaced. She breathed in air like a whale, pushing the stale air out until she wheezed, taking new air in. She would have to go deeper yet and still have time to search while she was at the bottom. This is where having Miley's lungs, those of a singer, would come in handy.

She was so stupid, Lilly thought once more as the idea of telling Miley she had lost the hatchet crossed her mind, and she cursed herself for letting them both down. It was just dumb. She vowed to herself that she wouldn't go back without the hatchet, or the survival bag. If she was going to prove to Miley that they were both mature and ready to progress in their relationship, then she was going to fix this stupid mistake and bring home the riches she was sure were inside the plane. Lilly deeply pulled air into her lungs again and again, readying herself for the next dive as she pushed her chest out until she couldn't possibly get any more air in, then took one more deep lungful before pushing into the water again.

This time she tried to torpedo, pushing off the bottom of the raft with everything she had in her legs to propel herself down. As soon as she felt herself slowing down she started kicking with everything she had, using her arms to pull herself to the bottom. She was so successful that she ran her face right into the muddy lake floor.

Lilly shook her head from side to side to clear her eyes and partially opened them to look around. She had stirred up a little bit of mud, but she could see that the plane disappeared out and down in front of her. She glanced at the windows and once again the thought of the pilot invaded her mind and she forced herself to get rid of the thoughts before she began to hyperventilate in her self-induced fear. She couldn't see the hatchet anywhere. Triggers were starting to go off in her brain, letting her know she had no more air, and she knew she was limited to seconds now but she forced herself to stay down for a few moments more. She moved around a bit, desperately scanning the lake bottom, and just as she ran out of air she saw the handle sticking out of the mud a few feet to her left. She made a grab for it but missed, reached again and felt her fingers wrap around the rubber handle. She clutched it firmly and in one motion slammed her feet down into the mud and powered herself up. By now her lungs were about ready to explode and she saw flashes of color against her eyelids. The explosions of color were just so bright, and she knew she would have to take a pull of water, take it into her lungs to ease the pain, and just as she opened her mouth to take it in, her head blew out of the surface and into the light.

"Tchaaak!" It was as if a balloon had exploded. Old air blew out of her nose and mouth and she pulled new air in again and again, not seeming to breathe fast enough to quell her brain that was screaming for more oxygen. She reached for the side of the raft and weakly hung on, just breathing, until she was able to think again. The hatchet was still clutched firmly in her left hand, and she wouldn't be letting go of it any time soon.

"All right…the plane. Still the plane…" She managed to say in between her gasping breaths. Her lungs were still burning, and despite her slight lightheadedness, she climbed back onto the raft to get back to work.

She went back to the hole she had created in the fuselage and began to swing away at it again, peeling the aluminum off in pieces. It was slow work because she was being extra cautious this time, very careful not to lose grip of the hatchet, and she continued to hack and pull at the plane until she had an opening large enough to pull her head and shoulders in and look down into the water. It was very dark inside the fuselage and she couldn't see a thing – certainly no sign of a survival pack anywhere. The only thing she saw were some small pieces and bits of paper floating on the surface of the water inside the plane, and a little bit of dirt from the floor of the plane that had floated up, but nothing substantial.

Well, she thought. Did you expect it to be easy? Just open the plane up and get the pack?

She would have to make a wider opening, one large enough for her to poke down inside and see what she could find. The survival pack had been a zippered nylon bag, and she thought it had been red, or was it gray? Well, that didn't matter. It had probably moved during the plane crash and was most likely jammed under something else.

She started chopping at the plane again, pulling the aluminum away in small pieces and laying them on the raft as she chopped away – she couldn't bring herself to throw anything away ever again, and the aluminum could be useful, for fish arrowheads or lures maybe. And when she finally finished, she had cleaned away the entire side and top of the fuselage that stuck out of the water, had cut down into the water as far as she could reach, and had a hole almost as big as she was. All that was left was a crisscross of aluminum – or it might be steel – braces and formers and cables. It was a tangled mess, but after chopping some braces away there was room for her to wiggle through and get inside.

Before climbing in, Lilly held back for a moment. The thought of getting inside the plane made her a little uncomfortable. What if the tail settled back to the bottom of the lake while she was still inside, and she got stuck and couldn't get out? What would happen to Miley then? It was a horrible thought and she shivered at the images, almost deciding to forego the whole idea - it was too risky. But then she reconsidered. The plane had been stuck like this for two days now, and she had been hammering away at it and climbing on it, and it hadn't moved at all. It seemed pretty solid.

She slid in through the cables and formers, wiggling and pulling until she was inside the tail with her head clear of the surface of the water and her legs down on the angled floor. When she was ready, she took a deep breath and pushed down along the floor with her legs, feeling for some kind of fabric or cloth – anything – with her bare feet. She touched nothing but the floor plates.

She surfaced to take a new breath, then reached down to the formers underwater and pulled herself beneath the water again, her legs pushing down and down almost to the backs of the front seats and finally, on the left side of the plane, she thought she felt her foot hit cloth or canvas. Up once again for more air and deep breathing, then Lilly made one more grab at the formers, pushing as hard as she could until she hit the object again, definitely canvas or heavy nylon. This time when she pushed with her foot she thought she felt something inside it; something hard.

It had to be the survival pack. It had been driven forward by the crash and was jammed into the backs of the seats and caught on something. She tried to reach for it and pull but didn't have the air left in her lungs and had to surface again for more.

Lilly filled her lungs in great gulps before shooting down into the water again, pulling on the formers until she was almost there, and then turning to move head first and grab at the cloth. It was the survival bag. She pulled and tore at it to loosen it, and just as it broke free, she looked up. In the light coming through the side window, the pale green light filtering through the water, she saw the pilot's head – only, it wasn't the pilot's head any longer.

The fish. She'd never really thought of it, but the fish they had been eating all this time had to eat too. They had probably been feeding on the pilot all this time, for almost two months, nibbling and chewing away at the flesh until all that remained was his not quite cleaned skull. When she looked up, it wobbled loosely in the water.

Too much. This was too much, and her mind screamed in horror as she slammed back, trying to move away. Her stomach rolled and she got sick in the water, choking on it, and she tried to breathe water and could have ended her life then and there, with the pilot where it almost ended when they had crashed. Except, her legs jerked at the fear, an instinctive move – fear, more than anything else, of what she had seen. Her legs jerked and pushed her way up and she shot to the surface, still inside the cage of formers and cables.

Her head slammed into a bracket as she cleared the surface and she reached up to grab it and was free, in the air, hanging up in the tail.

She hung that way for several minutes, choking and heaving and gasping for air as she fought to clear the image of the pilot from her mind. She tried to think of Miley, of her long brunette hair cascading in curls along her lean and tanned body, or her sparkling gray-blue eyes and mega-watt smile. Slowly the image of the pilot went away, losing out to the picture of Miley, but she knew it would never completely leave. She looked to the shore where she knew Miley was waiting, seeing the trees and birds and the brilliant sky. The sun was starting to get low and golden over their shelter and when she stopped coughing she could hear the gentle sounds of evening, the birds and the breeze in the trees. She could imagine Miley fishing in the pond or fixing up the shelter, going about their daily routine as she hummed a tune, low and soothing.

The peace finally came to her and she settled her breathing, no longer in danger of hyperventilating. She was still a long way from being finished – the bag was still stuck on the seat, and she thought she had seen a piece of luggage during her frantic push to get out of the water and away from the pilot.

The idea of going back into the water now freaked her out, but she forced herself to do it. There wasn't a good reason for her fear and she was too old to get scared. She just wouldn't look at the front of the plane again. With another giant breath, she repeated her descent into the plane and grabbed one last time at the survival pack, pulling it with her as she searched for the suitcase she had seen earlier. She saw it resting in some of the equipment they had been hauling and reached for it, surprised to find it came easily. It was Miley's bag, and she knew her girlfriend would be excited that she had found it. They could both use a change of clothes. Lilly's shirt was almost see-through now, and with the colder months coming, extra clothes would be necessary.

When she surfaced again, she rested her two finds on the cables and wiggled out through the formers – it seemed harder than when she had come in – and pulled the raft around. The bags fought her, especially Miley's suitcase, almost as if they didn't want to leave the plane. She managed to get Miley's bag out of the plane, but after pulling and jerking on the survival pack, it still wouldn't fit through the opening. At last, she had to change the shape of it, rearranging what was inside by pushing and pulling at the sides until she had narrowed it. It was a difficult process, pulling at one side then another, squeezing the pack through the hole an inch at a time.

All of this took quite a bit of time and when she finally managed to pull the bag free and tied everything to the top of the raft, it was nearly dark. She was dead tired from working in the water all day, chilled to the bone, and she still had to push the raft to shore. She knew Miley must be worried by now, and a few times she thought she had heard her call her name, but she had been too preoccupied and tired to respond.

Several times during her trip back to shore she didn't think she would make it. With the added weight of the bags – which seemed to get heavier every second – coupled with the fact that she was getting weaker by the minute, the raft seemed to barely move. Or at least it seemed that way, and she cursed herself for not eating breakfast that morning. She kicked and pulled and pushed, hanging to rest many times, then surging forward again and again.

It seemed to take forever and when at last her feet hit bottom and she could push against the mud and slide the raft to the shore, she was so weak and tired that she could barely stand, let alone notice Miley helping her drag the raft onto the sand.

"Thank God you're back, I was gettin' so worried," Miley rushed, pulling Lilly into her arms and squeezing her tight as she continued to ramble. "I couldn't see you out there, and when it started gettin' dark and you weren't comin' back, I thought maybe you'd drowned, or...Oh, Lilly. I almost couldn't stand it. Don't ever do that again."

Lilly weakly squeezed Miley back, thankful to be in her arms as her legs felt like Jell-O and her eyes were beginning to droop in exhaustion. Today had been the longest they had been separated since they had been stranded here, and she would be the first to admit that she had missed Miley. She had been gone for a little over half a day, but it had almost been too much and she couldn't get enough of feeling Miley against her, of hearing her comforting voice tinged with a southern accent. She didn't care that she had become dependent on Miley's constant company and presence by her side. She loved her, and she was all she really had.

Lilly sighed in content as Miley continued to hold her. She had done it.

"Is that my suitcase?" Miley's voice brought her out of her exhausted stupor and she turned to the raft as Miley began pulling away.

"Yeah, and the survival kit." As Miley let go, Lilly shivered. She had forgotten she was only in her underwear, and without Miley's warm body pressed against her, she was rudely reminded that it was now nighttime and she was wet and practically naked.

Miley must have noticed her shiver because she turned to Lilly and grinned, shyly scanning her body. "Are you cold, or are you just happy to see me?"

"Both. Now hand me my clothes woman. I'm about to become hypothermic. Unless you want to warm me up a different way."

Miley grabbed her clothes from a nearby log and stepped closer, helping Lilly pull her shirt and pants on after a few tired stumbles and failed attempts at putting her clothes on the correct way without falling over. "You're a mess. Come on, let's grab those bags and get you to the shelter. You can warm up while I cook you some fish for dinner. I hope you don't mind that I ate earlier."

"Sounds perfect," Lilly replied as she grabbed onto the survival pack and tried to follow Miley dragging her suitcase up the beach. But she was just too tired and ended up falling to her knees as the bag barely moved with her efforts. "Miles?"

Miley stopped and turned around, immediately dropping her suitcase as she ran to Lilly's side. "Are you ok? Lilly?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just can't carry the bag," Lilly managed to get out around the lump in her throat. It was a little pathetic, but she felt on the verge of tears in her exhausted state. She just couldn't do it, her body refusing to cooperate any longer, and her emotions were shot.

"Okay, I've got you. Here," Miley instructed as she pulled Lilly to her feet, wrapping an arm around her waist and grabbing the survival kit. "Just lean on me and I'll get the bags."

They slowly made their way to the shelter, Lilly leaning heavily on Miley for support and Miley attempting to drag both bags up the beach. As soon as Lilly crawled through the door, she collapsed onto the pine bed and closed her eyes, welcoming the sleep that was rapidly approaching.

From somewhere in her half-conscious state she heard Miley ask if she wanted dinner and it took everything in her to mutter a simple 'No'. She couldn't remember ever feeling so drained in her entire life, nor had it ever felt so good when Miley spooned her, and a tired smile formed on her lips.

"Hey baby, you did it," Miley whispered from behind, her lips close to Lilly's ear and her words sending warm air dancing over Lilly's skin. "I know I don't tell ya this enough, and maybe you're asleep and not listenin', but you're the bravest, kindest, strongest person I know."

"I'm awake," Lilly mumbled as she turned in Miley's arms to face her, struggling to open her eyes that seemed to want to close on their own accord.

"Good." Miley leaned forward, resting their foreheads together. When she spoke again, her lips moved against Lilly's, causing goose bumps to appear on her arms and a delicious sensation run through her body. Oh, how she loved what Miley did to her. "Now I can tell you how much I love you, and that I'm proud of you."

"Mmm…love you too Miles. Couldn't do it without you." The words were a mumbled mess as they spilled from Lilly's lips, but she didn't care. She was tired, and there were other things to be doing with her mouth right now other than talking. Her lips were tingling already and the warmth only spread further throughout her body when she leaned forward to solidly connect their lips. Like all the other times she kissed Miley, she felt the butterflies stir in her stomach and a surge of something fierce pool low in her belly. She knew she told Miley she would wait forever, but that was only if the raw desire didn't kill her first.

When the kiss ended, she snuggled closer to Miley, burying her face against her neck as she finally let the sleep come. She was unbelievably happy tonight, and a smile graced her lips as she was lost to the dream world.

She had done it.

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**Questions, comments, or concerns? **I didn't change much when she's dealing with the plane, because to be honest, I have no idea what elevators and formers and everything are, lol. Two more chapters are left, so if you have any requests, tell me now. I might consider adding in some of your ideas if they fit with what I have in mind :) Remember to review, and vote on my poll! And I enjoy constructive criticism too – I'm a big girl and can handle it if you want to tell me what you think I can improve on (like, does my dialogue suck or do I repeat words too often?). Otherwise, I'll never get to be a better writer!


	19. Chapter 19

**Note:** Sorry (again) about the wait – I went on vacation and didn't have as much time as I thought I would to work on this story, and I'm just a horrible person in general. I struggled with this chapter more than I've ever struggled with any of my writing. You'll probably notice in the last half of the chapter – it doesn't flow at all, I think because I tried to change the story too much and it didn't work with putting it all in one chapter. Oh well…Thanks for all your comments and suggestions! **Fangirl**, a sequel following 'Brian's Winter' is a very strong possibility but not something I will get to any time soon.

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_**19**_

_Treasure. _The survival pack was filled with unbelievable riches and Lilly could barely conceal her childlike excitement at it all.

The night before, Lilly had been so utterly exhausted that she couldn't do anything but fall in bed and sleep. The day spent in the water and working away at the plane had tired her so much that, in the end, she had fallen asleep almost as soon as she had crawled into the shelter and her mind couldn't be bothered with exploring what she had found at the plane. But this morning, in the dim gray light of dawn, she had woken and her mind had instantly thought of the survival bag and suitcase.

"Miles," she whispered, gently shaking the beautiful brunette sleeping next to her. Miley looked so peaceful in her sleep and Lilly hated to wake her, but she was impatient this morning. "Miles!"

"What? There better be a darn good reason you just screamed in my ear," Miley rasped, her voice heavy with sleep and her honey-thick accent that went straight to Lilly's center.

"Come on, get your lazy ass up! I want to see what's in the survival pack," Lilly whined, shaking Miley's arm to get the brunette to move faster. Miley was not an early riser and she tended to move slower in the mornings, something Lilly was not willing to deal with this morning.

"Good morning to you, too." Miley yawned, slowly sitting up as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Lilly smiled sweetly, bouncing enthusiastically as she waited for her to fully wake up. "You're like a five year old on Christmas mornin'."

"And you're like my grandpa after sitting in his chair all day."

"Alright, alright…I'm up." Miley's words were still deep with sleep and Lilly felt her body flush at the low southern timbre of her girlfriend's voice. It never ceased to amaze her how much she loved and lusted after the strikingly beautiful songstress in front of her, how much her soul ached to claim her as her own, forever. She leaned forward and kissed her soundly, catching Miley off guard; but the brunette caught on quickly and pulled Lilly ever closer, deepening the kiss. "Wow. I'll get up at the crack of dawn every mornin' if I get a kiss like that."

"You've got yourself a deal," Lilly breathed, still staring at Miley's lips, already missing the feel of them against her own. But her eagerness to dig into the survival pack outweighed her burning desire for her girlfriend at the moment, and Lilly jumped up, practically pulling Miley's arm out of its socket in the process. Then she turned her in the direction of the door and gave her backside a firm push. "Get moving, old geezer."

Her response was a flirty grin. "What if I'm too slow?" Miley asked, low and teasing. "Will you put your hand on my butt again?"

"No problem." Lilly reached out and slapped her rear firmly.

"Careful. I might like that."

Lilly laughed, amused not only by Miley's playful inferences, but by the openness of her teasing. It was flirtatious and suggestive, something new for Miley. Today was shaping up to be one of the best days of Lilly's life, and it had barely begun. They had yet to find out what amazing, wonderful things were inside the survival pack. "You need to keep your mind out of the gutter this morning, Miley Ray. Remember the survival pack and your suitcase?"

The sun was just beginning to peak over the trees, shining its cool morning rays across the lake, glittering like diamonds as it touched the gentle ripples. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and Lilly could tell it was going to be a hot and beautiful late summer day. A feeling of complete happiness filled her as she sat next to Miley, their shoulders touching, and opened the bag.

The first thing Lilly pulled out was a sleeping bag, which Miley immediately opened and hung to dry over the roof of their shelter, as well as a foam sleeping pad. Neither was large enough for the two of them to share, but they would definitely be useful for cushioning their bed of pine. And Lilly could think of one thing in particular that the sleeping bag would be useful for.

The next items Lilly pulled out of the pack were an aluminum cook set that consisted of four little pots and two frying pans. It even came with a fork, knife, and spoon set. Miley commented on being civilized again, them no longer having to eat with their hands like Jackson would normally do, and Lilly smiled sadly. The thought of Jackson and that a few pieces of silverware were all they had to remind themselves of the rules of etiquette of the society they had unwillingly left behind made her heart ache slightly. She suddenly wished her mother could yell at her one more time for slurping her soup or not picking up the clothes from her bedroom floor. It was the first time in a long while she had allowed herself to think of home and miss everything they wouldn't ever see again.

She nostalgically turned back to the pack and pulled out more items – a waterproof container with matches and two small butane lighters. These would have been handy in their first week here, and they certainly were still invaluable. Next was a sheath knife with a compass in the handle. As if a compass would help them, Lilly thought, smiling to herself as she handed the items to Miley. After that was a first-aid kit with bandages and tubes of antiseptic paste and small scissors – definitely convenient things to have on hand, and a cap that said CESSNA across the front in large letters.

"Why a cap?" she asked Miley, who merely shrugged her shoulders. It was adjustable and Lilly tugged it on to Miley's head, smiling at how adorable her girlfriend looked wearing the hat and grinning like she was a little kid on Christmas.

Miley leaned forward and kissed Lilly lightly, lingering for a few moments after the kiss ended. "Love you," she whispered, her warm breath caressing Lilly's lips, and Lilly felt her heart thump in her chest. Her mood now greatly improved, she reached back in the pack and pulled out a fishing kit with four coils of line, a dozen small lures, and hooks and sinkers.

There was incredible wealth in the survival pack. Opening it was like all the holidays in the world, all the Christmases and birthdays combined. She had never been more happy or thankful as she sat in the early morning sun, Miley at her side as she pulled the presents – as she had begun to think of them – out, one at a time. They talked and laughed, playfully flirting with one another as they had been all morning while Lilly continued to empty the survival pack of its gifts. Each one she would examine, turning it in the light, touching it and feeling it with her hands and eyes before handing it over to Miley who in turn did the same thing.

One of the objects in the bag at first puzzled her. She pulled out what appeared to be the broken-off, bulky stock of a rifle and she was going to put it aside, thinking it might be for something else in the pack, when Miley took it from her hands. Lilly watched in part amusement, part amazement as her girlfriend worked at the object, taking the butt of the stock off where she pulled out a barrel and magazine and action assembly. There was a clip and a full box of fifty shells. According to Miley, it was a .22 survival rifle, and how the girl knew that she could only imagine - probably another interesting fact about growing up in Tennessee. Lilly had never owned a rifle, never fired one, but she had seen them on television. She watched as Miley put the pieces together by screwing the action onto the stock, loaded it and put the clip full of bullets into the action.

It was kind of hot watching Miley handle the gun and she felt herself heat up at the thought. But when the brunette placed it in her hands, it didn't feel right. It somehow removed her from everything around them. Without the rifle, they had to fit in, be part of the woods and their surroundings, understand it in order to use it and survive in it. With the rifle, suddenly, she didn't have to know. She didn't have to be afraid of what she could not see or what might come at them unexpectedly; she didn't have to understand. She didn't have to get close to a bird in order to kill it – didn't have to know how it would stand if she didn't look at it and move in a particular way. The rifle changed things, and Lilly wasn't sure she liked the change very much. She quickly passed it back to Miley, who leaned it carefully against the wall. She would deal with the feeling later.

Glancing at the fire, she noticed it had gone out. She had been too excited to discover what the survival pack held that they forgot to add wood to the fire that morning in between the playful flirting and opening the bag. Lilly used one of the butane lighters and a fire starter that Miley must have assembled while she was busy with the plane the day before, and started another one, marveling at how easy it was but feeling again that the lighter somehow removed her from where she was, what they had to know. With a ready flame they didn't have to know how to make a spark nest, or how to feed the new flames to make them grow. They didn't have to work together to get things done, and as with the rifle, Lilly wasn't sure she liked this change.

The pack was wonderful, had brought them many useful tools, but she had mixed feelings about it now. She was used to their way of life here, used to struggling and enjoying the triumphs with Miley. Figuring things out for themselves and having to work together made the end results ten times sweeter. She didn't feel ready for something to change that, to take away her sense of accomplishment, to take away her connection to everything.

With the fire going and sending up black smoke and a steady roar from a pitch-smelling chunk of firewood she put on, Lilly turned once more to the pack. She rummaged through the food packets – she hadn't brought them out yet because she wanted to save them for last – and came up with a small electronic device encased in a plastic bag. At first she thought it might be a radio or cassette player, but when she opened the plastic and took the object out, she could see that it wasn't a receiver at all. There was a coil of wire held together on the side by tape and it sprung into a three-foot-long antenna when she took the tape off. No speaker, no lights, just a small switch at the top and on the bottom, two words in small print:

Emergency Transmitter.

So that's what it was. She tried flipping the switch back and forth a few times but nothing happened – no lights or noises or static – so, as with the rifle, she handed it to Miley who set it aside, commenting that it probably was ruined in the crash.

She dug into the pack again and her hands closed around two bars of soap. They had bathed in the lake fairly regularly, especially now they were no longer shy to be half naked around each other and send one another appreciative glances. But they had never had the luxury of soap and Lilly thought of how wonderful it would be to wash her hair, thick with grime and smoke, frazzled by the wind and sun, and matted with fish and bird grease from cooking. They had tried to keep their hair somewhat neat, always braiding it and attempting to keep it from tangling and clumping together, but that was near impossible. Now they could use the scissors from the first aid kit to trim their hair, then wash it with the soap and brush it out with the hairbrush that was surely in Miley's suitcase. And then they could change their clothes. The idea of being clean was almost as exciting as digging through the survival pack, but it would have to wait.

The next and last items in the pack were, finally, the food.

Everything was freeze-dried and there was so much of it that it seemed like they could live off it forever. Package after package, Lilly's mouth began to water – beef dinner with potatoes, macaroni and cheese, chicken dinners, egg and potato breakfasts, fruit mixes, drink mixes, desserts, even more dinners and breakfasts. There was more than she could count easily, all in perfect shape and packed in waterproof bags, and when they had them all out of the pack and laid against the wall of the shelter in stacks, she felt like laughing and crying at the same time.

"If we're careful," Miley said, her voice low as she stared at the food with Lilly, "they'll last as long as…as long as we need 'em to last. If we're careful…"

"No. Not yet. I don't want to be careful just yet. First, I want to have a feast. I want to go bathe in the lake and use that soap, and then I'm going to cook up a feast and eat until I drop. _Then_ we can be careful."

Miley chuckled as she watched Lilly go to the food packs once more, selecting what she wanted for their feast: a four-person beef and potato dinner, with an orange drink for an appetizer and something called a peach whip for dessert. All she had to do, apparently, was just add water and cook for half an hour or so until everything was rehydrated, warm, and ready for eating.

"Whoo! Toothpaste!" Miley shouted and Lilly turned from her examination of the food packets to find the brunette digging through her suitcase, pulling out items that would be more useful than others. "Oh man, and clean underwear!"

"You're sharing, right?" Lilly asked, already knowing the answer but not wanting to assume anything.

Miley stopped her eager digging and glanced up at Lilly, a surprised look on her face that slowly changed to a devious smirk. "I don't know…what will I get in return for lettin' you wear my clothes and underwear?"

"Me." Lilly smiled sweetly, batting her eyelashes, and Miley smiled back.

"Okay. Sounds like a fair trade to me." Miley was still smiling as she stood and extended her hand for Lilly to take. "Now come help me hang these things to dry. I suddenly feel dirty and I'm wantin' that bath you mentioned right about now."

Lilly reached for her girlfriend's outstretched hand and didn't let go once she was standing. She had been enjoying all the flirty banter this morning and was not about to let this opportunity slip past her. "You feel dirty?"

Miley blushed. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Lilly Truscott, and help me."

"Oh, I'll help you," Lilly chuckled and Miley's blush darkened, her girlfriend visibly affected by her words.

A wet t-shirt hit Lilly in the face and she laughed, grabbing the soggy garment before it fell to the ground, and helped Miley carry the suitcase outside. They used a piece of nylon string they had found in the survival bag to fashion a clothes line, and together they hung up Miley's clothes to dry. Then they sorted through the remaining items, putting her usable toiletries in the pile with the survival bag soap and leaving the unusable items such as her hairdryer in the bag, which they also left out to dry. When they were done, it looked as if something had exploded over their campsite, with clothes hanging everywhere and the contents of the suitcase and survival bag piled around the shelter. They would have to do something to organize it all and store the food away from hungry critters, but right now, all Lilly wanted was that bath.

"You want company during your bath?" Lilly wanted to join Miley – hopefully naked – in the lake, but only if she was welcome.

"Come on." Miley grabbed the soap and her hairbrush, heading down to the water where she turned around and grinned. "You can help me wash my back."

"You're full of yourself today, aren't you?"

"I can't help it. I got all wound up from you touchin' my butt."

Lilly shook her head and smiled. Though flattered by the suddenly suggestive flirting going on all morning, she wasn't sure how serious Miley was being, which left her a little unsure on how to respond to Miley's innuendos. She wanted to keep it going, maybe take it up a notch, but she was worried that eventually Miley would be spooked as she had many times before.

At the water's edge, Miley set down the objects she was carrying and loosened the tie that held her long hair back. "I so can't wait to wash my hair. And to think, you used to be blond."

"I bet I could wash it ten times and still not get all the dirt and grease out."

Miley suddenly pulled off her t-shirt and pants without any warning and stepped into the water. "Sweet nibblets, the water feels cold this mornin'."

Lilly was once again captivated by the site of a half naked Miley and her heart rate increased further as Miley took off her bra and underwear beneath the surface of the water and tossed them to shore. Watching Miley's hands slide over her arms and chest, dipping low beneath the water, gave Lilly an indescribable rush and she looked down, focusing on shedding her own clothes. The thought of Miley completely naked was making her stomach flip and she tried desperately to quell the almost disturbing lust she felt to devour her best friend. It would be best to avoid looking at all the nakedness that was displayed in front of her, if she was going to wait for Miley and keep her sanity at the same time.

"Are you comin'?" Miley reached out and Lilly hesitantly stepped into the water, handing her the soap with trembling fingers. The double entendre wasn't lost on her, but for once Lilly chose not to comment, not trusting herself to speak. Miley smiled, then turned her back to Lilly and dunked her head under water. When she emerged, her back still to Lilly, she began running the bar of soap over her hair. "So, I think we should figure out a way to ration the food first."

Miley was intentionally giving her some privacy and not tempting her, and Lilly loved her more in that single moment than she had in any since they had known each other.

"Ration…as in no feast?" The one bad thing about having food stores at their camp was that animals would be attracted to it. And that was potentially not good. But, Miley was right, they should save as much of it for as long as possible.

"No, we're still havin' that feast. We finally have a surplus of food. We have tools now. I think a celebration is in order."

"Thank God. I was worried you were going to suggest we save it all." Lilly removed the rest of her garments and tossed them back to shore before submerging herself to wet her hair. She sputtered to the surface. "Oh, that's cold!"

Miley laughed, waited a moment, and then turned around. "You'll be my friend forever if you'll help me untangle my hair and wash my back."

"I thought I already was your friend forever?"

"You'll be my special friend forever," Miley said, a hint of a smile on her face. She held out the soap to Lilly.

They took turns working the tangles out of each other's hair and washing their backs, something that proved to be a testament to Lilly's will power. It was one of the most difficult things she had ever done, touching her naked girlfriend yet not being able to touch her the way she desperately wanted to. After Miley left the lake to get dressed in their new clean clothes, she chose to stay behind in the water to cool off before facing Miley again. If she didn't take care of herself, she wasn't sure what would happen the next time Miley innocently touched her.

Slipping on the new clean clothes felt divine, and Lilly reveled in the special satisfaction that only being clean could bring. She felt rejuvenated and couldn't keep the smile off her face as she helped Miley store the food packets on their food shelf and fold their new clothes before storing them in the shelter. Together they worked to restore the campsite back to its neat and organized condition before it was finally time to prepare their feast.

Lilly went to the lake and got water in one of the aluminum pots and came back to the fire. It was amazing, and a little strange, to be able to carry water to the fire in a pot. Just a simple act and they hadn't been able to do it for almost two months. She guessed at the amounts and put the beef dinner and peach dessert on to boil, then went back to the lake and brought water to mix with the orange drinks.

She handed Miley a packet, and together they took a sip. It was sweet and tangy – almost too sweet – but so good that she didn't drink it fast. She held it in her mouth, letting the taste roll over her tongue, sloshing it back and forth and then down, swallow, then another.

"This is good," Lilly muttered between sips, "It's beyond good."

Miley merely moaned her approval, her eyes closed as she allowed her taste buds to absorb as much of the flavor as possible. But the drink was gone faster than they would have liked and Lilly realized that one was not enough.

She got more lake water and mixed two more and sat drinking the orange juice with Miley, the two of them sitting shoulder to shoulder near the fire and looking out across the lake. The cooking beef dinner smelled rich and delicious. There was garlic in it and some other spices and the smells that wafted to her nose made her think of home, of Mr. Stewart cooking, the rich smells of the kitchen. Miley rested her head against Lilly's shoulder and they sat together, enjoying the afternoon sun and their drinks as the food cooked next to them. When it was finally ready, neither of the girls could wait a minute more, the savory smells awakening a dormant hunger that twisted their stomachs in anticipation.

The food was even better than the drinks, was everything Lilly had imagined it would be and more. Tastes that had been a distant memory exploded in her mouth and she found her salivary glands cramping up several times as she ate the rich tasting food. It was incredible and mouthwatering and almost orgasmic. The two of them sat hunched over the meal, using their new utensils, and moaning at how delicious everything tasted. Hardly a word was spoken as they consumed the food, and when it was all gone, Lilly laid back and enjoyed the feeling of being stuffed full of savory food with no lingering traces of hunger remaining.

Never in her life had she felt so content and she spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the warm afternoon sun, playing with Miley's clean soft hair in her lap. She felt like she had won the lottery ten times over and couldn't help feeling a sense of pride in how well they were doing all on their own out here. She was sure everyone at home thought they were dead, thought it was impossible for two teenage girls to survive a plane crash and live in the wilderness for two months. But they were fine, and she wished for a moment that she could tell everyone back home just how fine they were.

Miley's head shifted in her lap and Lilly glanced down, noting the brunette's closed eyelids and steady breathing. "Miley?"

"Hmm?" Miley murmured, her eyebrows furrowing in question, and Lilly couldn't help but smile.

"Are you falling asleep on me?"

"No, I was just checkin' for holes in my eyelids," Miley drawled, cracking her eyelids open.

Lilly laughed. "Come on, let's get ready for bed. I think the sleeping bag is dry now and I want to brush my teeth."

Miley groaned but sat up anyway, following Lilly around the camp and brushing her teeth in a daze before they both retired into the shelter for the night. It had been the most amazing day of Lilly's life, and as she lay in bed that night with Miley wrapped in her arms after giving themselves to one another for the first time, she couldn't imagine her life getting any better than it was now. Her life was just right, and it was strange to realize that she didn't miss much of their old life…except the delicious food and a comfortable bed. Everything else was perfect.

The next morning, Lilly awoke to an empty bed and for a moment she panicked as she let her imagination take over. But then she heard the beautiful sound of her girlfriend humming right outside the shelter and she smiled, laying back down in their bed of pine branches and sleeping bag as she enjoyed the cheerful tune that came from Miley's lips. Stretching her body, a blush stole across her cheeks as she became conscious that she was still naked after spending the previous evening and night wrapped up in and loving Miley. She still had a hard time believing it was true, that Miley was hers completely, and her blush darkened as images from last night flitted across her mind. She had a sudden strong desire to kiss her girlfriend senseless, and she dressed hastily, quickly crawling out of the shelter with her shirt only halfway pulled over her head.

"Good mornin' sleepyhead, I'm makin' you breakfast."

Lilly beamed as she took in the sight of the food Miley was in the middle of preparing. There was more orange drink waiting, and the brunette was currently whisking together some pancake batter. "Oh God, I think I love you."

Miley chuckled as she stood up from their log bench and crossed the short distance to wrap her arms around Lilly. Lilly smiled even wider if that was possible. "Good to know, considerin' you let the whole forest know last night."

"Yes, but only you know just how _much_ I love you," Lilly muttered, right before she closed the distance between them, bringing their lips together in a searing kiss. She moaned as she felt Miley's hands slip under her shirt before pulling away, and her whole body was left tingling.

"I love you too," Miley whispered before turning away and grabbing the orange drink. "And that's why I decided that you deserve another special meal this mornin'. Without you, we wouldn't even have this stuff, so drink up."

Lilly took the orange drink and sipped from it slowly as she watched Miley bring the pancake batter to their fire and begin cooking. The smell of the batter frying on the skillet was delicious and her mouth watered at the idea of eating her all-time favorite food. She only wished they had chocolate chips and syrup, the way Robbie Ray would prepare them back home in Malibu, and at that precise moment, with her mind full of home and the smell of the food filling her senses, the plane appeared.

They had only a moment of warning. There was a tiny drone but as before it didn't register in Lilly's mind. Then, suddenly, roaring over their heads low and in back of the ridge, a bush plane with floats exploded into their lives.

It passed directly over them, low, tipped a wing sharply over the tail of the crashed plane in the lake, cut power, glided down the long part of the lake, then turned and glided back, touching the water gently once, twice, and settling with a spray to taxi and stop with its floats gently bumping the beach in front of their shelter.

Lilly had not moved. It had all happened so fast, she hadn't even realized Miley was now standing next to her, holding her hand. She still sat with the pot of orange drink in one hand, staring at the plane, not quite comprehending what she was seeing; not quite realizing that it was over.

The pilot cut the engine, opened the door, and got out, balanced, and stepped forward on the float to hop onto the sand without getting his feet wet. He was still wearing his aviators and he took them off to stare at Lilly and Miley.

"I heard your emergency transmitter – then I saw the plane when I came over…" He trailed off, cocked his head, studying the two of them. "Damn. You're them, aren't you? Those two girls? They quit looking, a month, no, almost two months ago. You're them, aren't you? You're those girls…"

Lilly didn't know what to say, couldn't remember how to move her mouth to form words. Her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth and her throat wouldn't work right. She felt Miley squeeze her hand, heard her cough to clear her own throat as she continued to stare at the pilot, and the plane, and then over at Miley, skin deeply browned and lean and tough from the two months they had spent living here. Then her girlfriend opened her mouth.

"My name is Miley Stewart and this is Lilly Truscott," Miley said. Then she waved to their awaiting breakfast. "Would you like somethin' to eat?"

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**Questions, comments, or concerns? **Feel free to slap me. I deserve it. I changed the story quite a bit in this chapter, if you remember how Brian was rescued, and he never found his suitcase. For those of you that would have liked to see some mature content, stay tuned for an alternative version of this chapter (posted as a separate story) sometime in the near future!

Now for some shameless self promotion: You voted on my poll, now go read what you voted for – Madness, something smutty like sex on the beach :) Part 1 is up and part 2 will be up shortly.

Also, if you haven't checked out Hmfanfiction dot com, you should. It's all Hannah Montana fanfiction without anything related to the Jonas Brothers. Go read, review, post your own stories, and make it the ultimate Hannah Montana fan fiction site out there!


	20. Epilogue

**Note: **This is the final chapter in this story. I'm sad for it to be over, as I know many of you are, but also very relieved. I have a lot of ideas for stories right now, and I'm not a multi-tasker who can write more than one story at once, so I'm glad for the opportunity to explore other stories that I want to tell. I hope you'll stay with me and continue to read and comment on my writing!

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_**20**_

_The pilot who had dropped in on their lives so suddenly was a fur buyer, _mapping Cree trapping camps for future buying runs. When Lilly had inadvertently turned on the emergency transmitter and left it going, the pilot heard the signal and had come to investigate. The Cree, one of the largest groups of First Nations - Native Americans - located in Canada, move into the camps for fall and winter to trap for fur and the buyers fly from camp to camp on a regular route.

When the pilot rescued Lilly and Miley, they had been living on the lake for fifty-six days, although it seemed like an entirely separate lifetime to Lilly. During that time she had lost seventeen percent of her body weight, Miley a little more, which had wreaked havoc on their bodies. She later gained back about six percent, but she had virtually little body fat – their bodies had consumed all extra weight and they would both remain lean and wiry for several years, something that Robbie Ray was always working to change with large homemade meals every night and plenty of bacon and chocolate chip pancakes in the mornings.

Many of the changes that affected the two girls while living in the forest would prove to be permanent. Their life in the wilderness had shaped them and influenced their lives drastically, something they hadn't noticed in each other but their friends and family had picked up on the subtle and not so subtle changes. Lilly and Miley's ability to observe what was happening and react to it had increased immensely; it was a skill that would last them the rest of their lives. They had become more thoughtful as well, and from that time on Lilly would think slowly about something before speaking, and Miley had refused to return to the exorbitant celebrity lifestyle of Hannah Montana.

Food, all types and kinds, even food that Lilly had not liked before, never lost its wonder for her. For years after their rescue she would find herself stopping in grocery stores just to stare at the aisles upon aisles of food ready for consumption, marveling at the quantity and variety and ease of acquisition. If she had been obsessed with food and eating before, it was nothing compared to how she viewed food after the rescue. She wouldn't ever take it for granted again.

And of course, there were the dreams. After they were rescued, Lilly would dream about the lake and the trees, and Miley sitting next to her by the fire in their shelter. The Canadian government sent a team to recover the body of the pilot and they took reporters, who naturally took pictures and film of the whole campsite – the shelter, their food storage, the fish pen – all of it. For a short while, the press went crazy over the two of them, and they were repeatedly interviewed by news networks and magazines, everyone wanting to hear the sensational story of how the two of them had survived. Miley was much better at handling the press than Lilly, and she was grateful when the furor died down after a couple of months, not used to and not liking being in the spotlight. A writer had even showed up, wanting to do a book on the "complete adventure" and their "unusual relationship" with each other but he turned out to be a dreamer and it all came to nothing but talk. Still, they were given copies of the pictures and tape, and looking at them seemed to trigger Lilly's dreams. They weren't frightening dreams, nothing like a nightmare, but she would often awaken after having them. In the middle of the night she would find herself brought out of sleep after the dream, and would lie there thinking about the lake, the forest, their warm fire, and the beautiful bird songs. With thoughts of the fish jumping and the sunset over the ridge, she would curl up against Miley, needing to feel something that had been part of her experience. Often she would step outside and sit by the fire pit, watching the flames dancing and imagining she was back in the forest, that her dream had been real. They were never bad thoughts, and would never be what nightmares are made of, but they often left her with a hollowness in her chest, something only being with Miley could cure.

When they were rescued and first brought back to civilization, it had been a tearful and overwhelming experience. Everyone had flown in to be there – her mom and dad, Oliver, Mr. Stewart and Jackson, even Aunt Dolly, Mamaw Stewart, and Grandma Ruby were there. They were all shocked and thrilled the girls were alive, something they had given up hope on when the search and rescue had been called off only a few weeks after the crash. Robbie Ray had wanted to tell the world Miley's secret, hoping Hannah Montana's disappearance would increase the search efforts to find his only daughter and her best friend whom he had come to think of as his second daughter, but he had decided that he couldn't give up hope on his baby girl just yet. He couldn't bear the thought of losing Miley, of both the women in his life leaving him, and had been the only one besides Aunt Dolly who had continued to believe that both Lilly and Miley were still alive out there.

There had been many tears and hugs, surprise and happiness, and for a week Lilly thought her parents might even get back together. Then she had been informed that her mother had relocated to Atlanta, Georgia for a job – there had been nothing keeping her in California and she had wanted a fresh start in a new city that didn't remind her of her missing daughter. The job was a good opportunity for her, with great benefits and wonderful opportunities for advancement, but the idea of leaving Miley and moving over two thousand miles away had terrified both girls and a different solution was quickly brought to the table. Mr. Stewart had just moved into a large ranch house with Jackson and there was plenty of room for Lilly, and after a short discussion it was decided that they would turn the barn adjacent to the house into a private room for the two of them. They both had their own separate bed but had yet to sleep a night without each other, spooned together like they had slept in the shelter back at the ridge. It was as much a comfort thing as it was a desire to be with each other intimately.

Lilly had been slightly apprehensive about disclosing the change in her relationship with Miley, but Miley had no such reservations. After the first question they received about their unusual closeness, Miley had declared on national television that she was in love with her best friend. Lilly had blushed but confirmed Miley's statement, and surprisingly nobody gave them any grief. Perhaps it was because everyone was just happy they were alive, or that they knew all along there was something between the two girls. Regardless, most people accepted their relationship and had instead focused on the details of their everyday life at the lake and how they had managed to survive.

Lilly herself had many questions about everything that they had seen and encountered, and she spent countless hours researching with Miley when they got home, identifying the animals and berries. The nasty cherries that had made her sick were termed choke cherries, and they apparently made good jelly. The nut brush where the foolish birds hid were hazelnut bushes. The rabbits were snowshoes and cottontails; the birds were ruffled grouse – which were often called fool hens by trappers because of their stupidity; the fish were bluegills, sunfish, and perch; the turtle eggs were laid by a snapping turtle like she had thought; the wolves were timber wolves, which have not been known to attack humans; the moose was just a moose, with an attitude problem; and the skunk was just a smelly skunk. And apparently it was an uncommon occurrence for tornados to touch down in the region they were stranded.

She also found that had they not been rescued when they were, had they been forced to live through the fall and into the winter, it would have been very difficult to survive. When the lake froze over they would have lost the fish, and when the snow got deep they would have had trouble moving at all. When the leaves fell off the brush in the fall, hunting game would have become much easier, but in the winter it would have become scarce and most likely nonexistent. Predators such as fox, lynx, wolf, owls, weasels, fisher, martin and northern coyote would sweep through the area and wipe out all the food. Lilly was amazed to read and find out what a single owl could do to a local population of ruffled grouse and rabbits in just a few months. They had been lucky to have been rescued when they were.

After the initial surprise and happiness from everyone at them being alive, things rapidly went back to normal. Lilly's father returned to his job in Alaska, where Lilly eventually visited him a year later (Miley of course by her side), and her mother flew back to Georgia to her new life and job, with the request that Lilly call her at least once a week and to not give Mr. Stewart any trouble. They moved into their room at the ranch house and the large property offered the perfect amount of solitude, as neither girl had much tolerance for crowds and other people.

Lilly often sat and wondered what her life would be like without Miley, if she would have survived the whole ordeal without her best friend by her side, but in the end chose not to ponder on the what-ifs and to focus on her life now with her beautiful girlfriend instead. She knew Miley was hers forever, that they shared a deep connection and understanding of each other that strengthened their friendship and love for one another. Miley would always be by her side, and she would never have to face anything in life alone.

_The End.

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**Questions, comments, or concerns?** Remember to look for the alternate chapter for 19. It will be rated M, so don't read it if you don't like that kind of stuff. And someday, I would like to continue this story with a sequel, following _Brian's Winter_ – basically what would have happened had Miley and Lilly not been rescued after all and they must survive the Canadian winter. Or maybe _Brian's Return_, which looks at their return to society and how they deal…or perhaps I'll write both. Just don't expect anything soon. Right now I'd just like to focus on my own original stories.


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